'Serbia and Kosovo dispute over property claims.'

Kosovo has decided to appropriate former Yugoslav property belonging to Serbia and the province of Kosovo, adding tension to already strained relations. As EURACTIV Serbia reports, the Serbian government reacted quickly, announcing the decision would soon be annulled.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he will use the opportunity of the March 15-16 Western Balkans summit in Sarajevo to try to explain to his counterpart, Kosovo Prime Minister Isa Mustafa, that such a move does not make sense. According to EURACTIV partner Beta, Kosovo's cadastral agency has been ordered to take all real estate, including the mining complex and ski resort, as well as land, and register it as'Kosovo's 'property. The government in Pristina was careful not to publicize the decision because two weeks passed between the March 1 decision and its publication.

The issue of the right to inherit property from the former Yugoslavia is a complex problem for the former republics of Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. It is even more difficult for Kosovo because it did not have the status of a republic and because Serbia will not be able to recognize Kosovo's self-declared independence anytime soon.

The head of the government's cabinet for Kosovo and Metohija, Marko Ђuric, said on March 15 that he would ask the Serbian government to annul the Pristina government's decision to confiscate real estate in Kosovo. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic''called Kosovo's decision "absolutely unacceptable, illegal and harmful". "By taking another unilateral decision, Pristina shows that it is not interested in the dialog in Brussels," Dacic said, adding that Serbia repeatedly raised the issue during talks in Brussels, but Kosovo officials did not want to discuss it.

Analyst Dusan Janjic says that at the moment decisions from Belgrade have no impact on Kosovo. He explained that as part of the EU integration process, Serbia has accepted that its laws are not applicable to the territory of Kosovo and therefore have no legal power to nullify legislation in that country.

Support for joining the EU is declining among the Serbian population, and this may be the result of a loss of confidence in the chances of accession, a recent survey by the Belgrade Center for Security Affairs shows. Kosovo's decision on property follows the logic of the process of inheriting the property of the former Yugoslavia, Janjic explained, explaining that Serbia cannot take part in such a process with Kosovo because it does not recognize its independence. One of the solutions he suggested for Serbia is to solve the problem through negotiations. The property problem has not yet been discussed in the negotiations, mediated by the EU, on the so-called normalization of relations. The Serbian side claims that''wanted to put the issue on the table, but Kosovo refused.

The talks, which are an important part of Serbia and Kosovo's EU accession process, are in deep crisis after Pristina announced it was suspending negotiations pending the release of politician Ramush Haradinaj, who was arrested in France on January 4 on an Interpol warrant for his extradition to Serbia. Haradinaj is accused of war crimes committed in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999 and is awaiting a French court ruling due in April.

The ruling includes the Trepca mining complex and the Brezovica ski resort, which have already been the subject of bitter discussions between Serbia and Kosovo. Kosovo's government announced in October that it had accepted''s control over the Trepca complex, and has continued the development of Brezovica with French partners, despite strong opposition from Serbia, which considers the process illegal privatization. According to Serbia's Geodesic Administration, the Republic of Serbia owns 29% of the land in Kosovo.

Read more at EURACTIV.