“The Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue Process: Challenges and the Way Forward” is the topic of the workshop that the Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI) held with civil society members, media representatives and MPs of the Kosovo Assembly.

In this workshop was discussed about the 7-year journey of the dialogue process where participants’ attitudes about the achievements and shortcomings of this process were revealed, what Kosovo has benefited from this process and what has been lost. Lack of transparency, the nature of the agreements themselves, the non-implementation and disrespect of agreed agreements and agreed timetables, the continued renegotiation, the lack of government accountability to the Assembly and the non-respect of the Assembly resolutions were some of the issues raised by the participants .

The need to change Kosovo’s approach to this process of dialogue and to formulate a state strategy on the topics, format and epilogue of this process was considered extremely important for the new phase of dialogue.

The participants revealed the options that Kosovo has for further steps in this process, arguing the need to suspend this process to evaluate the agreements already reached, up to the construction of a Kosovo state platform based on a comprehensive political party team and supported by a team of experts. It was emphasized that the path towards the EU for both countries is linked to this process and therefore Kosovo needs to build its European agenda and put into function its state priorities.

The need for an internal dialogue with the citizens of Kosovo and in particular with the Serb community in Kosovo was argued as important and it was emphasized that this process should not affect the citizen’s state and the unitary constitutional functioning of Kosovo.

In this workshop, it was discussed that the Kosovo Assembly should be the negotiating venue and mandate the new Kosovo negotiating team. It was emphasized the need for Kosovo to continue lobbying strongly on its agenda in these talks with EU countries.

This workshop was organized in the framework of the memorandum of cooperation signed between KDI and the Assembly aimed at increasing citizen participation in the framework of the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue and strengthening the Assembly’s oversight role towards the Government, with the financing of the Swiss Embassy in Kosovo.