Check against delivery!   

Good afternoon, 

Today, I invited President [of Serbia, Aleksandar] Vučič and Prime Minister [of Kosovo, Albin] Kurti to Brussels for the High-Level meeting of the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue. 

We have met several times last year. Several times.  

In some cases, the discussions have been intense. Almost all our meetings – in October, in September, in June, in May - were mostly focusing on crisis management. One crisis after another. Some events that kept us very busy, trying to look for a solution to the everyday crises.  

We dealt with crises instead of dealing with the implementation of the Agreement on the Path to Normalisation of the relations between Kosovo and Serbia. An agreement that was reached in February and in March. 

If you look back at the summaries of these meetings, you will recall that usually we lamented: lack of commitment; lack of progress; lack of implementation; lack of willingness to find a consensus. 

Today, the new round of the Dialogue will hopefully send a different message and end on a different note.  

Our EU Special Representative, Miroslav Lajčák, has been working, and I want to take stock with both leaders of what has been achieved in the Dialogue during our mandate since 2019. 

It will also be important for us to have an understanding on how the two parties see the future of the EU-facilitated Dialogue. How the parties want to continue this work. 

In a few months’ time, there will be different people, different names in our jobs, but the agreements, the Council Conclusions and the European Union’s expectations will not change.  

The Member States will not change. The commitments and obligations of Kosovo and Serbia will not go away. 

Everyone will still be looking at the capacity and willingness of the Serbian President and Kosovo Prime Minister to deliver a better, European future for their people. 

Normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia is at the heart of the European Union’s engagement in the Western Balkans.  

The progress on normalisation of their relations is also tightly linked to their accession path. 

Over the past years, the Dialogue brought also many achievements, which are often overlooked. You do not have to dismiss them. We have got some important achievements.  

And our greatest one is the Agreement on the Path to Normalisation.  

Now, in times of an unprecedented full-scale war on our continent, reaching an agreement for peace, for stability and for good neighbourhood relations, this is a landmark achievement.  

Unfortunately, the implementation of this Agreement has yet to start.  

And I hope that, today, we will definitely discuss how to ensure that we finally move ahead on the basis of this Agreement. 

For that, we will discuss the next steps, and it is clear that what has been agreed must be implemented. 

The agreements are the basis of action, but action has to follow the agreements. 

Implementation is the key word. And today, we will be working on concrete next steps for this implementation, overcoming the everyday crisis with the full engagement in the normalisation process.  

Thank you. 

Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-258867