Lajcak stops at Merdare Border Crossing after US forced Serbia to respect border agreement

Gazeta Express

15/10/2020 16:26

EU Special Representative for Dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, while leaving Kosovo and on his way to Belgrade made a quick stop at the Merdare border crossing, Gazeta Express reports.  

Lajcak posted in Twitter a photo in front of the Common Border Crossing Point, financed by the European Union. The facility is a single point – comprising two identical administration blocks with two sets of border authorities and was part of an agreement reached by Kosovo and Serbia on Integrated Border Management.

“On my way to Belgrade, I’m proud to visit the Merdare common crossing point premises built by the European Union with €4.6m, and now fully used by both parties as agreed in the Dialogue already in 2011,” Lajcak wrote on Twitter.

The Merdare Common Crossing became operational last year but until last week Serbian authorities refused to staff the new building refusing thus implementation of the Agreement reached with Kosovo in 2011. Serbia has finally agreed to implement the deal after on September 4 signed an agreement with Kosovo pledging to open and manage the joint Merdare crossing. The deal was brokered by the US and was signed at the White House at the observation of the US President Donald Turmp. Functionalization of the Merdare border crossing was welcomed on Wednesday by the US President Donald Trump’s special envoy on Dialogue, Richard Grenell, who thanked Serbian authorities for agreeing to move their police and customs officers to a joint crossing point. /GazetaExpress/