The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia Ivica Dacic stated that he was "unpleasantly surprised" by Ukraineʼs position during the vote in the Council of Europe for Kosovoʼs membership application.
N1 writes about it.
He emphasized that Serbia always supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine and condemns its violations in all international resolutions. Instead, Ukraine abstained during the vote for Kosovoʼs membership. Official Kyiv does not recognize Kosovo as an independent state.
He also criticized Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece and Slovakia, which supported Kosovoʼs bid. Instead, Dacic thanked Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Spain, Romania and Georgia for voting against. He expressed special thanks to Hungary, which recognized the independence of Kosovo, but voted against its application.
A day before, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti announced that the country had successfully passed the first stage of membership in the Council of Europe. It received more than two-thirds of the necessary votes in support of the application for admission to the Council of Europe.
- On March 18, Kosovo and Serbia agreed on a plan to normalize relations. This agreement commits Kosovo to immediately begin negotiations to grant the Serbian community in Kosovo an appropriate level of self-government. Within 30 days, Belgrade and Pristina were to establish a joint monitoring committee chaired by the EU. The parties also agreed to urgently approve the declaration of missing persons. For its part, the EU had to organize a donor conference on investment and financial assistance to Kosovo and Serbia within 150 days. But until the parties fulfill all provisions of the agreement on the normalization of relations, no payments will be made.
- On February 27, the first high-level meeting within the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue took place in Brussels. The topic of the meeting was the European proposal for the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. According to the plan (here it is), the parties should develop normal, good-neighborly relations with each other on the basis of equality, as well as mutually recognize documents and national symbols, including passports, diplomas, license plates and customs seals. However, Vučić also said at the time that he would not sign the plan to normalize relations with Kosovo because of the clauses related to mutual recognition and Kosovoʼs entry into the UN.