"With its opposition to the Ohrid Agreement and its annex, which will become part of negotiating chapter 35, Serbia is closing the door to EU membership," said Robert Cooper, the former mediator in the technical dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia.
With this position, the retired British diplomat responded to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's claim that the inclusion in the negotiating framework of the documents agreed by Kosovo and Serbia in the first half of 2023 would mean that the union is closing the door on Serbia.
"The EU does not want to be part of the problem, but to solve it. Its mission is that all members of the union have some kind of, not normal, but super-normal relations with their neighbors," said Cooper, who leads the technical dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia between 2011 and 2012
Chapter 35 in Serbia's accession negotiations includes neighborly relations, i.e. settling relations with Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, VOA recalled.
"The idea of bringing Serbia into the EU, while at the same time refusing to recognize the independence of the neighboring country and accepting it as a separate country - is not at the heart of the Union. This would strengthen the division between Serbia and Kosovo. What we want is for these divisions to disappear," said the former diplomat.
At a summit of European leaders at the end of next week, the European Council is due to announce the conclusions on the enlargement, a document that covers Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Turkey, Moldova and Georgia.
The draft, which VOA had access to, recommended that the Ohrid Agreement and its annex, which set out the steps towards normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia, be included in the expectations and obligations of both countries.
"It is clear that the sense of urgency dominates here. No one remembers when the two sides achieved a significant breakthrough in the negotiations," Cooper said, recalling the upcoming European Parliament elections to be held in June 2024/BGNES
