The President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, has revealed details about her confrontation with the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, at today’s Brdo-Brijuni Process summit held in Durrës.

After the summit, Osmani stated that her Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vučić, addressed the meeting — which was attended by presidents from across the region — with insults and arrogance, attempting to disrupt the event. However, she added that they ultimately succeeded in unanimously adopting a joint declaration.

Osmani said that for every piece of propaganda Vučić tried to present to the participants, she had strong counterarguments backed by international law.

According to Osmani, the Serbian president also complained about the defense alliance signed earlier this year between Kosovo, Albania, and Croatia. Nevertheless, he was reconfirmed that this cooperation aims solely at the defense of the three countries.

Furthermore, Osmani emphasized that Kosovo supports regional cooperation, but at the same time, it seeks to protect its national interests, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

“Vučić of Serbia addressed the summit with insults and arrogance, attempting to disrupt the meeting. In the end, we managed to adopt the joint declaration unanimously. Naturally, for every piece of propaganda Vučić tried to present to the participants, we, as the Republic of Kosovo, had our strong arguments — arguments on the side of justice and strengthened by international law.

As Kosovo, we are in favor of regional cooperation, but at the same time, we will protect our national interests, our sovereignty, and our territorial integrity. Even though Vučić expressed complaints about our joint defense agreement between Kosovo, Albania, and Croatia, he received our collective reconfirmation that this represents cooperation aimed solely at our defense.

My response was that throughout our history as a nation, we have never attacked or occupied anyone; we have always defended ourselves and will continue to do so. Our alliances are defensive, meant to protect us from threats posed by others. In our case, that threat comes from Serbia,” she emphasized.

On the other hand, President Osmani was critical of the European Union regarding the continued imposition of punitive measures and the EU’s failure to process Kosovo’s membership application.

She said that EU member states are not basing the enlargement process on merit but rather on political agendas.

“Kosovo remains under the European Union’s sanctions, for which none of the member states are willing to provide an explanation as to why they are still in place, even though all conditions set in the Bratislava Agreement have been fulfilled.

At the same time, although our application for EU membership was submitted back in 2022, due to the opposition of some member states, the European Commission has not yet been mandated to address Kosovo’s candidate status.

This leads us to the conclusion that the process is not merit-based, but driven by political developments and individual considerations of member states when deciding whether or not to support a country.

If it were merit-based, Kosovo — as the number one reformer not only in the region but, according to the Gallup Institute, number one in Europe and number three in the world for the rule of law — would have advanced much further and would now be close to membership. Unfortunately, political developments in some member states are blocking this progress,” she said.

Alongside President Vjosa Osmani, the summit was attended by Albanian President Bajram Begaj, Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar, Croatian President Zoran Milanović, Montenegrin President Jakov Milatović, North Macedonian President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.

The Brdo-Brijuni Process is an annual multilateral event in the Western Balkans. It was launched in 2010 by Slovenia and Croatia.

The Process includes Slovenia and Croatia, both EU member states, as well as EU candidate and potential candidate countries from the Western Balkans: Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.