PRISTINA, Kosovo. Kosovo’s government is making a last-minute effort to convince Western powers to vote on admitting the country as a new member of the Council of Europe, the continent’s main human rights body.
Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla-Schwarz, in a letter sent on Thursday to Theodoros Rousopoulos, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said the government would send the Kosovo Constitutional Court a draft law it is working on , which details his proposal on Serbian-majority municipalities. at the end of May.
Foreign ministers from Council of Europe member countries were due to meet on Friday, but it was unclear whether Kosovo’s admission would be on the agenda and whether Gervalla-Schwarz’s letter could achieve it.
Kosovo needs at least the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the 46 member countries to be a member of the council.
Media in Kosovo said the vote on the country’s membership was not included on Friday’s agenda, apparently because France and Germany were not convinced that Kosovo had taken sufficient steps to establish a so-called association with its Serb-majority municipalities. in the north, a condition. something that has been denounced by the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti.
The association would coordinate work on education, health care, territorial planning and economic development in Serbian-majority cities and towns and serve as a bridge with the Kosovo government.
Despite assurances from the United States and the European Union, Kosovo fears that such a partnership is a step toward creating a Serbian mini-state with broad autonomy, similar to the Republika Srpska in Bosnia.
The creation of the association was first agreed in Brussels in 2013 and approved by the Kosovo parliament. But Kosovo’s Constitutional Court later deemed it unconstitutional, saying it did not include other ethnicities and could implicate executive powers.
The Constitutional Court will now have to decide whether the new project complies with the Kosovo Constitution.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic described the Kosovo move as a “trick rather than a serious attempt to do something about the implementation of the Brussels agreement.”
The vote by foreign ministers is the final step before Kosovo can be invited to join the Council of Europe.
EU-facilitated normalization talks between Kosovo and Serbia have failed to make progress and Brussels has warned both that a refusal to compromise jeopardizes their chances of joining the bloc. Serbia does not recognize the formal declaration of independence of its former province of Kosovo in 2008.
The 1998-1999 war between Serbian government forces and ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo killed about 13,000 people, mostly Kosovo Albanians. In 1999, a 78-day NATO bombing campaign ended the war and Serbian forces were driven out.
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Semini reported from Tirana, Albania. Associated Press journalist Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.
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