For the EU, no further steps are needed for the Ohrid Agreement to be implemented

Although the sequencing of the Ohrid Agreement for non-implementation has been continuously mentioned as a problem, EU officials have told "Koha" that the parties are aware that no further steps are required for it to become applicable. Connoisseurs of the dialogue say that, referring to internal developments in Serbia and geopolitical ones, it is not expected that the dialogue will make progress in the following years

No further steps are required to make the Ohrid Agreement legal and enforceable by the parties, Brussels officials have said. But they have not shown at what stage is the sequencing plan, for which the EU emissary for dialogue, Mirosalv Lajçak, visited Pristina and Belgrade several times.  

"The EU and the member states have been very clear that the Ohrid Agreement of 2023 is binding under international law for both Kosovo and Serbia and that no further steps are required for it to be in force. The European Union and its member states expect the parties to urgently implement all past agreements without any further delay," EU spokesman Peter Stano said on Thursday. 

More than a year since the Agreement was reached, none of its points have been implemented.
The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, has conditioned its implementation as well as the approval of the draft of the Association that Lajcak later submitted to him, with the signing of all documents. But Serbia has refused to do this, writing a letter to the EU that it does not undertake the implementation of the points, which confirm Kosovo's citizenship either "de jure" or "de facto". 

The Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, Besnik Bislimi, has said that the letter of the former Prime Minister of Serbia, Ana Bërnabiq, against the implementation of the points of the Agreement that confirm Kosovo's citizenship has not been withdrawn. Bislimi said this was confirmed by the EU envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Miroslav Lajçak, in the meeting held last month.

On September 6, after a meeting in Pristina with Bislim, Lajcak said that Bërnabiq's letter had been withdrawn. 

"The letter (of former prime minister Ana Bërnabiq) has been withdrawn. There are statements here and there that don't help at all. But the agreement as such is valid in its entirety and beyond that, the agreement has already become part of the European path of Kosovo and Serbia. So it's valid both ways. We have agreed on something, but we cannot say this without coordinating with others", said Lajcaku. 

And, Stano has stated that they are working for the comprehensive normalization of relations. 

"The EU as a dialogue facilitator is working with the parties towards a comprehensive normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, addressing all unresolved issues. The principle of confidentiality is a key component of any politically sensitive negotiation process", added Stano. 

Since the agreement was reached on February 27 last year in Brussels and the Annex on March 18 in Ohrid, the node around the implementation has been the Association of Municipalities with a Serbian Majority

Government officials in some cases complained that the mediators themselves in the dialogue have conditioned the implementation of other points of the Agreement with the Association.

The executive director at the "Epik" institute, Demush Shasha, said that although the topic of the Association was at the epicenter of the dialogue, with or without it there can be no expectation that the dialogue will make progress in the coming years. For this he listed two reasons. 

"In the internal sense, whether in Belgrade or in Pristina, with the passing of each month and each year we will see a lack of political leaders who will have the ample legitimacy to shoulder the burden and the cost that progress in dialogue imposes. So, it is expected that the Vetëvendosje Movement, Mr. Kurti, will not have the support in the future that they have had since 2021. It is expected that Vuçiqi in Belgrade from now on will see a decline in terms of support his", said Shasha. 

The second reason, according to him, is related to the external aspect. 

"And that is that with the arrival of either the Harris or Trump administration, we will witness the lack of attention of the White House in our region. So this has nothing to do exclusively with Kosovo and Serbia, but in general the Western Balkan region will not be seen as a priority. In the case of the Harris administration, what we are seeing is a very big focus on China", Shasha emphasized. "While with the Trump administration it will be very difficult to predict anything because for him our region is totally irrelevant and therefore what will happen is a cycle of crisis management that we have actually seen from 2021 until today . So at least until 2030 we should expect to see things that we have seen from 2020-2021 until today, that is, a repetition of these last three or four years". 

States of the European Union, which are also members of the Council of Europe, set a precondition for Kosovo to proceed with the draft statute of the Association in the Constitutional Court, in exchange for support for admission to the Council.

This approach to the EU was justified by the values ​​that both organizations represent. 

Part of the obligations deriving from last year's Agreement are also the issues discussed in the previous dialogue.  

The so-called First Agreement on the Normalization of Relations between the two countries, reached on April 19, 2013, has not yet been fully implemented. Its first six points refer to the Association of municipalities with a Serbian majority. In 2015, another agreement was reached on the principles of the Association, which the Constitutional Court rejected. 

The Kurti government assumed the obligations for this mechanism with the Brussels Basic Agreement. 
European officials have made it clear to the parties that the non-implementation of the agreements will affect the respective paths towards EU integration. Kosovo continues to be under sanctioning measures, which the EU has not yet removed, despite the Government's insistence that it took the required steps to improve the situation in the north.