Kosovo steps up lobby for EU membership after Serbia customs deal

Kosovo is stepping up its lobby to start talks about membership of the European Union after it reach breakthrough in its customs dispute with Serbia. Its president came to Brussels for the first time last week for high-level talks with officials at all key European institutions. Greece, Spain and Serbia are some of the countries that dont recognize Kosovo as an independent state. Kosovo is still seeing interethnic violence, even as recent as a month ago, with clashes at the Kosovo-Serbian border. It’s clear that much needs to be done before it’s possible to speak about a normalized situation. But Kosovo’s President feels it’s destined to join the union. The European parliament remains concerned about continued evidence of corruption in Pristina and its surroundings. Council President Herman van Rompuy said he was pleased to see ‘a European solution,’ to a trade dispute with Serbia, reaching an agreement over customs stamps. Van Rompuy urged the president of Kosovo to make further progress to uphold the rule of law and fight organised crime and corruption in order to “steadily bring Kosovo closer to the EU”. Kosovo, as a generally ethnic Albanian region, declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbs living in Kosovo, most Christian orthodox, continue to complain about harsh discrimination by the mostly Muslim Albanian majority.

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