Gerald Knaus from the European Stability Initiative (ESI) has reacted after the declarations from the Council of Europe that Kosovo will not be part of the agenda for its membership in this organization in the middle of this month as it was foreseen earlier. KiE spokesman Daniel Holtgen said yesterday that the issue of Kosovo is not on the agenda of the Council of Ministers next week and that at the moment it is not known when it might be, without giving more details. In a post on the X social network, Knaus wrote that the test for Kosovo's membership will be next week. In this context, he raised the question of whether Germany will fail. "The test is next week. Will Germany fail? "Right now, Germany, France and Italy plan to veto the recommendation by 82 percent of the deputies in PACE, which followed the most meritocratic review by three commissions and experts," Knaus wrote.

He has added that all this would be a diplomatic Waterloo and loss of confidence in EU justice. Kosovo last month received the green light from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for membership in this organization, prompting confidence in Pristina to fulfill this goal and anger in Belgrade. Some of the Western countries, including France and Germany, made it a condition for their vote that Kosovo take concrete steps to establish the association, based on a draft statute drawn up by Western diplomats that was submitted to the parties in October 2023. However, the prime minister Albin Kurti called such a condition unacceptable. Two days ago, after a meeting with the diplomats of the main Western countries in Pristina, he called for membership in the Council of Europe not to be confused with the normalization of relations with Serbia, since these processes are separate.

But the American envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, who is at the end of his term, said that these processes "are very connected". The Council of Europe, he said, "is about the treatment of minorities and Kosovo has made clear commitments to the treatment of minorities and this includes the association". Kosovo and Serbia agreed in 2013 on the establishment of the Association, while in 2015 they agreed on its principles. But, that same year, the Constitutional Court of Kosovo found that a large part of these principles are in conflict with the Constitution of Kosovo. In October 2023, European and American diplomats submitted to the parties a draft association statute, which must be subject to review of its constitutionality by the Constitutional Court before establishment. Its establishment is part of the agreement on the normalization of relations which the parties agreed on last year in Brussels and Ohrid. Serbia campaigned against Kosovo in the Council of Europe, although with the Ohrid agreement it is committed not to oppose its membership in international organizations.