Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and the Prime Minister of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev invited Kosovo to join the mini-Schengen initiative during the video meeting held on October 30.
The activities of the initiative for the improvement of regional cooperation have been derailed by both the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, and political developments including elections in North Macedonia and Serbia.
The leaders of Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia emphasized that it was extremely important for the Western Balkans to further engage in improving regional co-operation, and therefore called on Pristina to join the initiative. Joining this platform is also part of the framework defined in the White House meeting of US President Trump between Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti.
Bosnia and Montenegro have also been invited and the three current leaders reiterated their hope that they will soon decide to partake.
Vučić, Rama and Zaev also agreed to form a permanent working group that will include official representatives of the governments of each of the participating countries, in order to speed up the process of signing and implementing agreed activities within the initiative for improving regional cooperation.
The participants agreed that this initiative can also be used to identify joint infrastructure projects aimed at the development of the region, in accordance with the EU Economic and Investment Plan for the countries of the Western Balkans presented by the EU alongside the progress reports for each WB country.
