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FOLLOWING THROUGH: ASSURING SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION

The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) and the Council for Inclusive Governance (CIG) convened another roundtable for senior officials of main political parties from Serbia and Kosovo. The participants discussed the challenges in the process of implementation of the Ohrid Agreement between Kosovo and Serbia reached in March 2023.  The discussions were held on May 4-6, 2023 in Küsnacht, near Zurich, Switzerland. Miroslav Lajcak, EU’s Special Representative for the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, took part in one discussion session where he explained ongoing challenges in the process of implementation between the two parties and outlined support that is needed for the process to be successful.

The majority of the participants concluded that at present the Ohrid Agreement has no viable alternative and represents a good basis for normalization but that a lot of work needs to be done by the parties to agree to implement it according to the agreed timelines. A few participants, however, expressed their reservations about the agreement and said they and their parties are rather cautious about the implementation. One participant’s party does not support the agreement but support the normalization of relations in general.

 

This brief report below does not necessarily represent the views of individual participants, CIG, or FDFA. It simply reflects the discussion as a whole. The roundtable is part of a larger CIG project on the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia supported by FDFA.