Macedonian President in Pristina: Reserve for the Open Balkans!

The President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, thanked her Macedonian counterpart for her continued support to Kosovo in the process of European integration, but also in NATO, where Northern Macedonia is already a member. Meanwhile, in their meeting, the issue of the Open Balkans was touched upon, an initiative for which Osmani again said that he does not accept the equal treatment of the six countries of the Western Balkans.

Participants in the meeting of the “Open Balkans” initiative in Nis, Serbia. As long as Serbia does not treat Kosovo equally in regional initiatives, then we see that Serbia wants to expand its hegemonic interests. Kosovo has great reservations regarding the political aspects of this initiative, but also regarding the security and economy because the aim is to use a kind of anteroom to delay the European integration process.

Pendarovski himself, whose country is part of the initiative together with Albania and Serbia, also had reservations about the “Open Balkans”. The Macedonian head of state said that he had seen it with suspicion from the beginning, as long as it does not include all countries in the region.

Let me remind you that when it started as an initiative in 2019, I was the first politician to express reservations. This initiative lacks something, instead of being six states, there are only three. As long as it does not involve all states there will be no successes. My position is that it can only be one of the tools for trade and economic improvement, but not political. It may just be part of the Berlin Process, but not replace it. The Berlin process is an initiative that has institutions, there are resources that the ‘Open Balkans’ does not have.

Pendarovski further spoke about the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, saying that it remains the only solution towards stability in the region.

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