In the 421st broadcast of Slobodno sroski show, was president of the Movement of Free Citizens and member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia Pavle Grbović. In an interview with Budimir Ničić, he said that in the last activities in the process of normalizing relations between Belgrade and Pristina, the international community did not give the negotiators room to manoeuvre after the meeting and to manipulate what was agreed in Brussels. They usualy say one thing, think another, implement another, but they came out with the final text of the agreement.
„They did not come here for our negotiators to humiliate each other, but rather to solve certain issues that have been a stumbling block here for more than 20 years. These are very serious matters and very serious topics and I think they do not show an approach that is adequate“.
Commenting on the relationship between Vučić and Kurti and the fact that, according to the Serbian president, they never even shook hands, Grbović says that such behaviour is unacceptable in dialogue.
„The message is being sent that reconciliation is something that the „evil West“ is forcing us to do, not something that is necessary, not something that we want, that we feel is the need of the population of Kosovo, that people should be reconciled, that Serbs and Albanians try to live not next to each other, but with each other, but we are at the table because we have no other option, because they don’t let us fight. If we were to fight, it would be too expensive for us, so we have to be there at the same table „.
According to him, such a situation is schizophrenic, as well as the fact that the negotiating parties behave as if they were attacked by „gangrene of hatred“. Grbović is ready to lend a hand in a possible meeting with an Albanian colleague from the parliament in Pristina.
„I think it’s the most normal thing.“ If you’re not ready to shake someone’s hand, then I don’t believe you’re ready to negotiate anything. At the same time, these are not, some kind of peace agreement, and there are people in Europe and in the world that shook hands after the bloodiest world wars“.
After the meeting in Ohrid, a political obligation for Serbia was created, it is indisputable, it is recognized and it is now also internationally confirmed, and the process of Serbia’s integration into the European Union is conditioned by the implementation of the European plan on normalization, Grbović says. He opposes a possible referendum on the rejection of the European plan in Serbia, because it would mean that Serbia does not want to be part of the Euro-American space, while at the same time the feelings of the people, primarily the Serbs living in Kosovo, are being manipulated.
„So, if you reject that agreement, it does not mean that Kosovo will once again be part of Serbia in the full formal and legal sense.“ This does not mean that the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija will be more protected, it does not mean that the degree of their property rights, economic rights or any other will be at a higher level. On the contrary, it means that you are isolating yourself from any possibility to influence it, it means that you are entering into some kind of diplomatic and political conflict with those who have the greatest and most important influence in this area, I repeat, which are the countries of the European Union and USA“.
According to him, rejecting the agreement would mean that Serbia has finished its European journey
„This certainly means that Serbia is becoming a politically and economically unpopular market for all companies, all firms coming from those countries. For those who are currently doing business in Serbia, it represents a certain type of reputational damage, so that some of them would probably reconsider their decision, and this means that Serbia is siding with Vladimir Putin in this new global geopolitical division…“
On the contrary, if the implementation is successful, it opens space for faster progress in Serbia and benefits for Serbs in Kosovo, Grbović believes.
„Successful implementation is that implementation which implies that the Association of Serbian Municipalities is really formed in the way and in the sense that it is foreseen by that Brussels agreement and that it really enables one type of their self-governance in the area of Kosovo and Metohija and one type of institutional cooperation and communication and monetary and any other between official Belgrade and local self-governments“.
Grbović is of the opinion that ever since the Kumanovo Agreement through the Brussels Agreement, and even the agreement in Ohrid, Belgrade recognizes that it no longer has sovereignty over the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, but on the other hand, Kosovo has not yet crossed the threshold of statehood.
„Don’t expect from me, or from the citizens of Serbia, any kind of empathy towards their constitutional and legal pains, let them find for themselves what they signed and adopted by a two-thirds majority in their assembly“, said the member of the Serbian Parliament, Pavle Grbović, visiting the show Slobodno Srpski.
