PARIS — Marathon talks aimed at overcoming ethnic divisions in Kosovo ended without an agreement on Wednesday, dealing a potential blow to Serbia’s aspirations to join the European Union and undermining hopes of improved stability in the Balkans.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union foreign policy chief, who acted as mediator, said in a statement after more than 12 hours of talks in Brussels that the gap between officials from Serbia and Kosovo was “very narrow, but deep.” She said the meeting was the last she would call between the parties, though both sides indicated their openness to continuing the discussions, with less than two weeks to go before a crucial milestone for Serbia’s bid to join the European Union.
“They will now both go back and consult with their colleagues in their capitals and will let me know in the next few days of their decision,” Ms. Ashton said in a statement. “I wish them a good journey home and every possible success in reaching a conclusion.”
The heated negotiations, centered on how much autonomy to grant ethnic Serbs in the north of Kosovo, face the daunting task of overcoming historical enmities. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after NATO intervention helped end a bloody civil war with Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians. Serbia still considers Kosovo its medieval heartland and refuses to recognize its independence. The United States and most of the European Union recognize Kosovo as an independent nation; opposing that view are Russia and many other countries, including Spain. Among their concerns is the fear that recognizing Kosovo would spur secessionist movements in their own territories.
Ms. Ashton is to issue a report April 16 that will determine whether Serbia will be given a date to begin European Union accession talks. Normalizing relations is considered a prerequisite for Serbia and Kosovo to eventually join the bloc. Failure of the talks could marginalize both countries, undermine their economic progress and entrench ethnic nationalism in the face of an already fragile stability. But analysts said the deadline could still focus minds.
People close to the talks said tempers had flared on several occasions. The Serbian news media reported that at one point a senior member of the Serbian negotiating team, Aleksandar Vucic, the deputy prime minister, had offered his resignation to the prime minister, Ivica Dacic, who refused it.
According to B92, an independent broadcaster in Serbia, Mr. Dacic told reporters that the main stumbling bloc to the deal had been a failure to agree on the autonomy of the judiciary and the police in the northern part of Kosovo, where ethnic Serbs who do not recognize the authority of the government in Pristina are in the majority.
Under a potential deal, Kosovo could grant autonomy to Serb-dominated municipalities in the north in return for Belgrade’s tacit recognition of Pristina’s authority there. But Pristina is vehemently opposed to any deal that would create a rival executive body and undermine its sovereignty.
The talks are also seen as a test of the European Union’s ability to dangle the incentive of joining the world’s biggest trading bloc in return for cajoling countries to make difficult political and economic changes.
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