The Russian foreign minister called out the bloc over events in in the breakaway Serbian province
The European Union has utterly failed to enforce its 2013 agreement guaranteeing the rights of Serbs in Kosovo and is allowing the ethnic Albanian government to do as it pleases, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday.
Lavrov spoke at a press conference in Moscow about the work of Russian diplomacy in 2023; a question came up about Kosovo’s newly announced ban on the use of the Serbian currency, scheduled to take effect on February 1.
The EU “should be ashamed” of the situation in Kosovo, Lavrov said, reminding reporters that in 2013 the bloc mediated the ‘Brussels Agreement’ between Belgrade and Pristina, envisioning the establishment of a Community of Serb Municipalities and specifying their rights.
“It’s been over ten years and nothing has changed, the deal which the EU claimed as its greatest diplomatic achievement has gone nowhere, and the EU can’t do anything about it,” Lavrov said.
If anything, Brussels is now “changing the existing agreements” to favor Pristina, so that “the Serbs would have no rights, or have entirely artificial rights, while the real power rests with the Albanians,” he added.