Analysts said the positive effects of a planned highway connecting Serbia with Kosovo and eventually Albania will not be fully felt unless Belgrade and Pristina do more to ensure free movement.
Belgrade and Pristina must adjust their legislation to further remove obstacles on the free flow of people and goods, as well as on sanitary controls, if the planned highway link is to be truly beneficial, experts have warned.
Since 2012, an integrated control service has operated on the main border crossing between Serbia and Kosovo, which includes custom officers from both sides who, with the help of the EU law mission EULEX, jointly monitor the passage of people and goods.
But this still poses an obstacle for people from other countries who travel from Kosovo to Serbia because they have problems crossing, as Serbia does not recoginse Kosovo’s passport stamps and treats them as illegal entries.
“It is in the interest of Serbia to stop the practice of non-recognition of Kosovo’s stamp [in passports]. They [Serbia and Kosovo] must agree on this issue… Otherwise, the positive effects of the construction of the highway will not be felt,” Dusan Janjic from the Belgrade-based Forum for Ethnic Relations told BIRN.
“This is one of the relics of the policy of Serbia’s non-recognition of the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo” Janjic said.
But he expressed optimism that practical priorities would lead to a solution.
“Serbia has accepted a lot so far [concerning Kosovo’s independence]”, he said.
Serbia hopes to use EU funds to build the highway from the town of Nis to the border crossing with Kosovo at Merdare, which should eventually connect with the highway running from Pristina in Kosovo to the port town of Durres in Albania.
The highway, which forms part of the European transport network Corridor 10, and is the first major infrastructure project between Serbia and Kosovo since the war in 1999, is being financed by both countries and supported by EU funds.
A four-lane, 137-kilometre highway connecting Tirana in Albania and Pristina in Kosovo was finished in 2012. The next section, from Nis in Serbia to Pristina, which should be some 120 kilometres long, is still waiting to be built. The section in Serbia will be 77 kilometres long.
The new highway will also benefit neighbouring Montenegro, which shares borders with both Serbia and Kosovo but has no highway connection with them. Using the new road could increase traffic between Montenegro and Serbia.
Political analyst Pavle Dimitrijevic believes the integrated border crossing between Serbia and Kosovo, which is in use only at a couple of points at the moment, could become a lasting solution.
“The question is whether all the crossings will function as integrated ones or whether there will be some other solution,” said Dimitrijevic.
Building the highway is one of the key topics in the negotiations taking place in Brussels on normalisation of relationships between Serbia and Kosovo.
The EU-led talks in Brussels are designed to find ways in which the two neighbours can better coexist in practice, among other things.
Ever since the conflict in the late 1990s, Serbia has refused to recognise the loss of Kosovo and its subsequent declaration of independence, insisting that the former province remains an integral part of Serbian territory.
This has resulted in many administrative problems that continue to hinder economic exchange and the free movement of people.
Work on the part of the highway in Serbia should begin at the end of 2016.
It is estimated that each kilometre of highway in Serbia will cost around 10 million euros as the route mostly runs through mountains.
Source; Balkan Insight
