PRAGUE -Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti submitted a bid for Kosovo to hitch the European Union on Thursday, launching a course of that might take years, if not many years, and relies on it normalising relations with neighbouring Serbia.
Kurti offered the applying in Prague to the Czech Republic, holders of the EU’s rotating presidency.
“We would like no again door, no fast-track. We wish to construct the EU in our nation with our individuals,” Kurti mentioned after handing the applying to Czech European Affairs Minister Mikulas Bek.
Kosovo is the one nation in its area till now to not have utilized to hitch the EU.
Whereas there's reluctance throughout the 27-nation EU for additional enlargement, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led them to commit extra power to enhancing relations with the six Balkan international locations of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.
“We firmly consider that a European future is the one approach to resolve plenty of issues within the area, whether or not financial, social or ethnic,” Bek mentioned.
Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 with the backing of the West, following a 1998-1999 battle during which NATO intervened to guard the territory.
Kosovo just isn't a member of the United Nations, and 5 EU states – Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus – have refused to recognise its statehood.
Its independence is recognised by round 110 international locations however not by Serbia, Russia or China, amongst others.
Kosovo nonetheless must normalise relations with Serbia earlier than it may well be a part of the EU. The bloc is engaged on a deal it hopes each events will comply with inside a yr.
EU and U.S. envoys this week known as on Kosovo and Serbia to stay calm amid an ongoing ethnic disaster within the north of Kosovo the place native Serbs have erected barricades to forestall police motion, a part of tensions between authorities and Kosovo’s Serb minority.
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