The special envoy of the European Union for the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, Miroslav Lajcak, is meeting on Monday in Belgrade with the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic. As Vucic’s cabinet announced, there will be no media statements after the meeting.

Lajcak arrived in Belgrade after a meeting he held four days ago with the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti. After that meeting, it was said that escalation is not in anyone’s interest. Lajçak told reporters in Pristina that he and Prime Minister Kurti discussed several topics, including the re-registration of cars with Serbian license plates in the RKS (Republic of Kosovo). He mentioned that the deadline for re-registration expires on October 31 and that the international community wants to know what the plans are in this regard. Until now, the Government of Kosovo has said that the deadline for re-registration will not be postponed and that from November 1, cars with license plates issued by Serbia will no longer be able to circulate. These license plates are considered illegal by the authorities in Kosovo, but until now they have been tolerated in the north of Kosovo.

On July 31 and August 1, local Serbs in the north of Kosovo set up barricades as a sign of dissatisfaction with the decision of the Government of Kosovo to implement two decisions: for car plates and Serbian documents. The decision to implement these two decisions has been postponed to September 1, also at the request of international mechanisms. In the meantime, an agreement has been reached on the entry/exit documents. Kosovo and Serbia have started negotiations for the normalization of relations in 2011, with the mediation of the European Union. The negotiation process is expected to end with legally binding agreements. Although Kosovo declares that this agreement should include mutual recognition, Serbia does not accept, insisting on a “compromise solution”.

/Klara Ruci/