Kosovo’s premier slams Serbia ahead of fresh round of talks

Good morning. More news from the very bleak department: The chance of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5°C since pre-industrial times is now less than 33 per cent, the new head of the UN’s climate science body has warned.

Today, Kosovo’s premier tells our Balkan correspondent EU peace talks with Serbia are doomed unless Brussels gets tougher on Belgrade. And we preview today’s international summit dedicated to the Global Gateway — the EU’s alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Doomed from the start

The leaders of Kosovo and Serbia are expected to meet in Brussels tomorrow for the first time since a violent stand-off between Serb paramilitaries and Kosovo police left four people dead last month.

But the west should dampen its hopes of getting talks back on track — unless it comes down harder on Serbia, Kosovo’s premier Albin Kurti tells Marton Dunai.

Context: The EU has been trying to mediate between Belgrade and Pristina, after Kosovo broke away from Serbia in 2008. But progress earlier this year came undone following disputed elections, and things deteriorated in September when 30 Serb paramilitaries barricaded themselves into a north Kosovo monastery.

The EU is eager to stabilise the situation in the western Balkans, which comes on top of wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East. But Kurti, who blames the attack on Belgrade, said in an interview earlier this month there will be no movement until the international community condemns Serbia.

“If there is no condemnation and sanctions on Serbia after what they did, there will definitely be no dialogue,” Kurti said. “We will end up in a failed crisis management and forget altogether about normalisation.”

The Serbian government has denied any involvement in the attack, despite the million-euro cache of arms used by the paramilitaries and largely made in Serbia. The former deputy leader of Kosovo’s Serb party, Milan Radojičić, was arrested and admitted he masterminded the operation but said he did not receive orders from the government in Belgrade.

Kurti accused the attackers of “trying to start a new armed conflict, a new war in Kosovo to annex the northern part of our country.” He said that following the September 24 attack, “everything has changed. We cannot go back to business as usual.”

He called for EU West Balkan envoy Miroslav Lajčák to stop “considering Serbia a force of nature, a kind of irrational bear who we have to throw lambs to appease it. This must end for the sake of normalisation and peace and security.”

Nato’s KFOR peacekeeping mission in the region has been strengthened with hundreds of troops and heavy equipment. While Kurti said they were welcome to help patrol the Serb border, he has opposed more active engagement of the forces on the territory.

“[They] are needed for security and defence . . . And this shall remain so,” he said. “We don’t need to make KFOR first responders.”

Chart du jour: Collision course

A British cargo ship has sunk in the North Sea after a collision early yesterday morning. Two sailors were rescued and one died, but four others are feared to be trapped in the sunken ship’s hull.

Long game

Representatives from over 40 governments congregate in Brussels today to drum up investments for large infrastructure programmes under the EU’s flagship Global Gateway initiative.

Officials hope the programme designed to rival Chinese foreign investment will finally take off after a sputtering start, write Laura Dubois and Alice Hancock.

Context: The EU launched Global Gateway in 2021, allocating €300bn until 2027. Its aim is to compete with China’s $1tn Belt and Road Initiative, which over the past decade has funded power plants, ports and other infrastructure across the world.

Last week, Chinese president Xi Jinping hosted a summit to celebrate the BRI’s 10th anniversary, with world leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Indonesia’s Joko Widodo and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

The EU’s two-day Global Gateway forum will be a slightly more modest affair, largely focusing on the implementation of 89 “flagship projects” launched under the programme — such as a €1bn partnership with Namibia on critical raw materials and renewable hydrogen, for which Windhoek and Brussels agreed on a road map yesterday.

“Global Gateway is only one and a half years old, and is now noticeably gaining momentum,” German development minister Svenja Schulze said.

Schulze conceded that mobilising the needed funds was not a quick job, and that Global Gateway’s large infrastructure projects “take time to plan and implement”.

But according to liberal EU lawmaker Nicola Beer, China’s offerings are “unequal and unfair”, and given out “only to enrich itself”.

“Many countries in the Global South are realising that co-operation with China, for instance, does not come for free, but that they end up with new dependencies and long-term debt,” Schulze said.

What to watch today

1. European Commission hosts Global Gateway forum.

2. Representatives of trade unions and EU institutions meet.

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