EU under pressure, demands access to Serbian archives and start of excavations for missing persons

Access to classified information in the archives of the Serbian police, army and intelligence, along with the start of excavations in Batajnica and Kožle on Serbian territory, are demands that the head of the Government Commission on Missing Persons, Andin Hoti, insists on.

Hoti said he will discuss these and other issues at a meeting with the Special Representative for the Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue, Peter Sorensen, next week in Pristina.

After emphasizing that previous EU representatives in the dialogue process "did not focus and prioritize this topic as much as needed," he called for the new facilitators to be more assertive.

"If Mr. Sorensen and Ms. Kallas really will really consider the issue of missing persons as important, a priority and will treat it as a humane issue. This means that Serbia is no longer satisfied with appeasement, that Serbia is no longer satisfied with those soft pressures and almost no pressures on it, for four years now, since 2021, since we have been in Brussels. But, Serbia must be conditioned," said Andin Hoti, Chairman of the Government Commission on Missing Persons.

The first meeting of the Joint Commission on Missing Persons in Brussels, under the chairmanship of the EU, scheduled to be held on January 15, had failed as a result of the boycott by the Serbian side – which, two weeks later, also blocked the working sub-groups mediated by the Red Cross.

While the Terms of Reference foresee regular meetings every month for the first six months, four months after the agreement in Brussels, envoy Sorensen aims to schedule the first meeting of the Joint Commission.

Referring to the obstacles and delays from the Serbian side, Hoti mentioned the importance of the EU holding it accountable.

"Within the framework of the Joint Commission, it (the EU) has an obligation to report to the 27 EU member states. I sometimes talk to the families - this still does not mean that we have a result, because the families are only interested in the result. But this means that we are a step ahead, because the 27 member states will have the issue of missing persons of Kosovo on their table and for me I believe that this issue is important", said Andin Hoti, Chairman of the Governmental Commission on Missing Persons.

The office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Dialogue, Besnik Bislmi, also said that they have asked the EU to increase pressure on Serbia regarding this topic.

The European Union confirmed to Dukagjini that immediately after his visit to Pristina, Special Representative Sorensen will convene the first meeting of the Joint Commission on Missing Persons in Brussels.Dukagjin/