Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Djuric said that the fact that the European Union's Committee of the Regions adopted the Opinion on the 2025 Enlargement Package without the Kosovo footnote at the bottom of the page raises serious concerns.
He claims that this is not even consistent with the status-neutral framework that is the basis of the EU-mediated dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia.
Djuriqi stressed in a post on the X network that ignoring this agreed reference calls into question the agreements reached through dialogue and "risks undermining the fragile trust on which the process is based."
He recalled that the Kosovo footnote, which was established by the 2012 Agreement on Regional Representation and Cooperation with EU mediation, is a carefully balanced formulation and clearly refers to UN Security Council Resolution 1244 and the ICJ Opinion.
"Continued respect for previously agreed modalities is necessary to protect the credibility of the dialogue and maintain trust between the parties. Therefore, Serbia will continue to insist on the continued implementation of a status-neutral approach in all EU institutions and at every level of engagement," Djuric wrote.
The EU Committee of the Regions adopted an Opinion on the 2025 Enlargement Package at its session on March 5, which states, among other things, that, to ensure institutional coherence and political clarity and “to reflect Kosovo’s European perspectives”, the terminology should be in line with that of the European Parliament, discontinuing the use of the footnoted designation Kosovo in its public documents.
