Kosovo MPs Feel Left in Dark About Serbia Talks

Kosovo MPs have asked Prime Minister Hashim Thaci to give parliament more information about the ongoing EU-led dialogue with Serbia.The opposition Democratic League of Kosovo has demanded more clarity about the character of agreements being reached with Serbia in the EU-led dialogue in Brussels.

“Any agreements between the two states have to be ratified in parliament before being implemented,” Vjosa Osmani, from the LDK, said.

“This hasn’t happened, as you have already started implementing agreements before the parliament ratified them,” Osmani added, referring to the government of Hashim Thaci.

The Kosovo parliament approved the dialogue with Serbia with a resolution before the process actually started.

But, since then, MPs from the opposition parties have complained of a lack of transparency about what is being agreed far off in Brussels.

The dialogue, which aims to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia, started in March of 2011, while the level of representation rose to that of heads of government last autumn.

Since then, four meetings between Prime Minister Thaci and his Serbian counterpart, Ivica Dacic, have taken place under the auspices of the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.

An “Integrated Border Management” agreement, Serbian government funds for the Kosovo Serb community and locating missing persons from the conflict of the 1990s are among the topics discussed so far.

At their last meeting, on January 17, the two Prime Ministers reached an understanding on the collection of customs duties, levies and VAT, Ashton’s office said after the meeting.

However, as with several of the other agreements, this agreement was interpreted differently in Pristina and Belgrade.