Serbian president won’t attend EU-Western Balkans summit over Kosovo row

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has announced that he will not attend a summit between six Western Balkan countries and the European Union next week.

Vučić was angry with the Kosovo government after it appointed a moderate Kosovo Serb politician as its new minister responsible for the country’s minorities.

“Northern Kosovo Serbs are about to decide not to let anyone go north,” he said. “People, you have to understand that everything is boiling, that our people can’t take it anymore.”

Last month, parts of the Kosovo Serb population quit their jobs in protest, including police officers, over the decision to force people to use Kosovo license plates on their cars.

The decision would have impacted many members of Kosovo’s Serb minority population who still had license plates dating from before 1999, when Kosovo was still part of Serbia.

Kosovo and Serbia agreed last week to end the dispute, temporarily defusing rising tensions between the Western Balkan neighbors.

Tensions on which Olivér Várhelyi, the European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, reflected when speaking of the summit.

“We are also witnessing a major geopolitical destabilization on our continent. That is exactly why we have this summit next week in Tirana, where our leaders, for the first time, are coming to the region to talk about the region with the region” .

Representatives of the respective countries will meet in Tirana on December 6.

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