Kosovo and Serbia Resume EU-Backed Talks

Serbia and Kosovo's prime ministers Aleksandar Vucic and Isa Mustafa are to meet for the first time on Monday with EU foreign policy chief Frederica Mogherini as Brussels seeks to revive the process of normalising relations after the formation of new governments in both Belgrade and Pristina.

Mogherini's office said in a statement on Friday that "the two prime ministers will take stock of the progress in the dialogue so far and exchange views on the way forward in the normalisation process".

The negotiations in Brussels will be the first since March 2014, although no major breakthrough is expected at Monday's talks.

An EU official involved in the process said the meeting, which will also be chaired for the first time by Mogherini, was "rather a formality", aimed at setting the agenda for the future.

Mogherini's spokesperson Maja Kocijancic told BIRN that Vucic and Mustafa would decide who would represent Belgrade and Pristina at future meetings.

"It is up to them to decide the structure of delegations from their respective capitals," Kocijancic said.

Serbian media reported that Belgrade would raise the issues of the judiciary in Serb-run north Kosovo, the constitution of the Community of Serb Municipalities and the Trepca mine that Kosovo recently tried to privatise. 

Edita Tahiri, Kosovo's Minister for the Dialogue with Serbia, has said meanwhile that for Pristina the main topics would be an international dialling code for Kosovo and the formation of Kosovo courts in the Serb-run north.

The talks in Brussels come after Isa Mustafa's government axed Serb cabinet member Aleksandar Jablanovic. Marko Djuric, the head of Serbian government's office for Kosovo office said that Jablanovic's ousting could complicate the...