Kosovo Briefing
Tomorrow morning (9 April), the Security Council will convene for its first regular briefing this year on the situation in Kosovo. Special Representative and Head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) Peter Due is expected to brief on the Secretary-General’s latest report on UNMIK (S/2026/264), which was circulated to Council members on 31 March and covers developments between 16 September 2025 and 15 March. Kosovo and Serbia are expected to participate under rules 39 and 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, respectively.
Due is expected to highlight key political and security developments in Kosovo during the period covered by the Secretary-General’s report. He may note that, while the situation in northern Kosovo continued to be calm but fragile and the European Union (EU)-facilitated dialogue achieved some progress, political uncertainty in Kosovo has persisted.
Municipal elections held in October and November 2025 saw broad participation across all communities and a peaceful transition of authority, including in northern Kosovo, where Kosovo Serb mayors have assumed office for the first time since withdrawing from Kosovo institutions in 2022. Srpska Lista (Serbian List), the largest Kosovo Serb political party, won mayoral races in all ten Kosovo Serb-majority municipalities.
Legislative elections, held on 28 December 2025, also proceeded peacefully. The ruling Vetëvendosje party secured 51.1 percent of votes (57 of the 120 seats in the Assembly of Kosovo), while Srpska Lista obtained 4.5 percent and won nine of the ten seats guaranteed for Kosovo Serbs in the legislature. On 11 February, the Assembly elected Prime Minister Albin Kurti as leader of the new government with 66 votes in favour, temporarily resolving an almost year-long political deadlock.
On 5 March, however, the constitutional deadline for electing a new President of Kosovo lapsed without agreement among political parties, triggering renewed political uncertainty. The following day, incumbent President Vjosa Osmani issued a decree to dissolve the Assembly, arguing that political actors had deliberately failed to meet the constitutional deadline. The Vetëvendosje party challenged the decree before Kosovo’s Constitutional Court, contending that dissolution may only occur after three unsuccessful rounds of presidential voting. On 9 March, the Constitutional Court imposed an interim measure barring Osmani from acting on her decree. The Court ruled on 25 March that the decree was without legal effect and granted the Assembly 34 days to elect a president.
Meanwhile, there has been some progress in the EU-facilitated dialogue. On 22 January, the chief negotiators from Belgrade and Pristina, Petar Petković and Besnik Bislimi, together with EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue Peter Sørensen, convened the Joint Commission on Missing Persons in a trilateral format for the first time. This body is charged with overseeing the implementation of the Declaration on Missing Persons signed in May 2023. The parties agreed on steps to make the commission operational.
In the preceding months, Sørensen met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in Brussels on 4 November 2025, during which he called for the implementation of all dialogue agreements and constructive engagement by both parties. Following the meeting, an EU spokesperson reportedly indicated that EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas will convene a high-level meeting between the parties once “appropriate conditions are created”. In subsequent months, Sørensen met separately with senior officials in Belgrade and Pristina in mid-January, and again with Vučić and Kurti on separate occasions in late February.
On 14 March, Sørensen again visited Pristina ahead of the entry into force on 15 March of the Law on Foreigners and the Law on Vehicles. The two laws introduce requirements governing the registration of non-residents, residency permits, and the use of vehicles not registered with Kosovo institutions. According to the Secretary-General’s latest UNMIK report, Kosovo Serb civil society organisations and the Serbian Orthodox Church expressed concern that, without a lasting solution to registration-related challenges, the laws could adversely affect daily life for residents, particularly those in Kosovo Serb communities who lack or cannot obtain Kosovo-issued documents. They further cautioned that the measures risked disrupting Serbia-administered education and healthcare services and urged that unresolved issues be taken up within the EU-facilitated dialogue.
At a joint press conference with Kurti on 14 March, Sørensen announced that an agreement had been reached on the modalities for implementing the laws, including additional measures related to residence permits and identification documents. Sørensen also noted that the EU had insisted on structured consultations throughout the process with Kosovo Serb community representatives to secure their support. Officials in Belgrade and Pristina, along with several international interlocutors, have welcomed the agreement.
At tomorrow’s meeting, Due and several Council members are expected to call on Belgrade and Pristina to reaffirm their commitment to the EU-facilitated dialogue and to carry out existing agreements in full. They are also likely to welcome recent progress, including the first trilateral meeting of the Joint Commission on Missing Persons and the EU-facilitated agreement on the implementation of the Law on Foreigners. In this regard, some members may call for sustained efforts to ensure that the laws are applied in a manner that protects the rights and well-being of non-majority communities, while some may note that outstanding issues should be addressed within the dialogue. Some may also welcome Kallas’ expressed intention to host a high-level meeting when the appropriate conditions are met.
Due and several Council members are also expected to commend the peaceful conduct of the municipal and legislative elections and note the broad participation of all communities, including Kosovo Serbs in northern Kosovo. Some members may welcome the formation of the new government while encouraging authorities to reach agreement on the election of the President of Kosovo.
Several Council members are expected to underscore the importance of UNMIK’s work in fostering trust between communities and supporting progress towards normalisation. UNMIK’s mandate remains a point of contention, however. Established in 1999, the mission’s mandate is unique among the UN peace operations routinely addressed by the Council in that it is open-ended. The US has been the most vocal proponent of reviewing UNMIK’s operations and ultimately phasing it out, having described it at the Council’s October 2025 briefing as a “bloated peacekeeping mission without peacekeepers”. Denmark and the UK have similarly argued that a strategic review of the mission is overdue. France has adopted a more cautious position, expressing support for efficiency measures and also for maintaining UNMIK’s mandate for as long as necessary, while noting that the mission’s mandate is intrinsically linked to the normalisation process. Russia, by contrast, has opposed changes to UNMIK’s mandate or budget, maintaining that the mission continues to play a crucial role.
Overall, deep divisions persist among the Council’s permanent members. France, the UK, and the US recognise Kosovo’s independence and tend to be supportive of its government, while China and Russia do not, and strongly support Serbia’s position and its claim to territorial integrity.
