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PUBLIC STATEMENT

REAFFIRM THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE DIALOGUE ABOUT KOSOVO IS BASED ON

Forum for Security and Democracy remarks with great concern that the dialogue about Kosovo has over the course of January, which marks a six month milestone since President Aleksandar Vucic issued an open call for it, found itself in most dire circumstances to date and is under serious pressure.

FSD notes that the pressures, coming from different fronts, foreign as well as domestic, are being led by radical and open opponents of any sort of further Serbian integration into the EU; however, political rivals and opponents of the sitting President and his ruling party, even though they themselves advocate for Serbia’s integration into the EU, partakes in these pressuring campaigns, often with no less fervor or recklessness.

FSD would like to especially point out that these campaigns are also spearheaded by influential individuals within the Serbian Orthodox Church, whose approach is based mostly on a traditional anti-western platform of deterring Serbia from the EU, where some of its so called dignitaries stoop to abusing religious sentiments (especially those concerning Kosovo) as well as rather blasphemous means of distinctively political opposition and obstruction of current authorities to which there has been no consistent response.

FSD also notes that the Russian state media acting on Serbian territory, Sputnik, is also becoming more active in the dialogue about Kosovo in a curiously inappropriate manner, where it views that dialogue as another instrument for achieving the goals of Russian foreign policy in the Western Balkans – which are increasingly more openly incompatible with further future integration of the Western Balkans into the EU.

Last but not least, FSD warns that attempts to block the dialogue about Kosovo by the radical rightwing and nationalist circles, articulated through bellicose cries about “not renouncing Kosovo,” which is being represented as a key element of ‘the national identity of the Serbian people’ and it’s ‘national DNA’ (whatever That means), heedless of whether that manner of approach to the issue and that method of the preservation of national identity actually endangers and brings into question the future of the very people they are supposedly protecting. 

 
It is FSD’s opinion that, after six months, a reaffirmation of the principles upon which future dialogue about Kosovo should be based is needed – since they have been loosely defined at the dialogue’s beginnings – as well as a more thorough and serious reexamination of the sources of media narratives that aim to use the dialogue about Kosovo to confront Serbia with the EU. 

In Belgrade, 30.01.2018.