Stano: Pristina to face consequences if it fails to form Serb municipalities

BRUSSELS - Commenting on the 11th anniversary of the Brussels Agreement between Belgrade and Pristina, EU spokesperson Peter Stano said on Friday all commitments from that agreement as a valid document must be implemented, and noted that Pristina would face consequences in case it failed to form a Community of Serb Municipalities.

Asked by Tanjug how the EU could influence Pristina to meet that commitment from the agreement and whether the deal was still a valid document for Brussels, Stano responded:

"Of course, it is a valid document. All the agreements reached within the EU-facilitated dialogue are valid documents, are a valid commitment, and they need to be implemented. They need to be honoured, and this is something we keep repeating to the partners."

"We were very clear in stressing that the implementation is the key, and the same goes for all the previous agreements, they need to be fulfilled, they need to be implemented. The issue of the Association/Community of Serbian Municipalities is one of the crucial and most urgent issues," he said.

"We were very clear and we remain very clear with the Kosovo counterpart that they need to implement it because failure to do so will lead to consequences.

The same goes for the Ohrid Agreement, the (EU) High Representative and the member states of the EU were very clear that implementation progress on these agreements is inevitably linked to the progress of both Serbia and Kosovo on their EU accession paths, so if the partners do not deliver on their commitments, on the agreements they made, there will be very serious consequences," Stano noted.

"The only people who will be paying for this will be the people in Serbia and Kosovo if there is no movement on delivery on the commitments taken in the framework of the dialogue," he added.