A few hours before the deadline, Belgrade and Pristina struck a deal, ending a conflict that threatened with a potential armed conflict. On Monday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti left Brussels without an agreement, but on Wednesday night, with the mediation of the EU, Serbia's and Kosovo's chief negotiators managed to find a solution suitable for both sides.

Licence plates will remain

Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy announced the news on Wednesday night that Serbia and Kosovo managed to strike a deal on the contentious licence plates issue. „We have a deal!”, Mr Borrell wrote on Twitter. The EU politician added that the chief negotiators of Serbia and Kosovo agreed that Belgrade will stop issuing license plates with the names of towns and cities in Kosovo, while Pristina will suspend further actions related to the re-registration of vehicles.

We have a deal!

Very pleased to announce that Chief Negotiators of #Kosovo & #Serbia under EU-facilitation have agreed on measures to avoid further escalation and to fully concentrate on the proposal on normalisation of their relations.

— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) November 23, 2022

According to the agreement, authorities in Kosovo will not start imposing a 150-euro fine on Serbian vehicles from Thursday morning, contrary to previous plans. The escalation of the situation was avoided, and now the parties can fully concentrate on normalizing their relations, Josep Borrell wrote.

We preserved peace

„The threat has passed, and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti will not be able to punish Serbs,” Petar Petkovic, the leader of the Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo said after the agreement. „We preserved peace and managed to keep our people in the north of Kosovo” Petkovic added. It is particularly important that the licence plates issued by Serbia will remain in use, the Serbian politician emphasized.

Photo: Office for Kosovo

„We are talking about licence plates that are legal, issued in compliance with the laws of the Republic of Serbia, and that the Serbs living in the north of Kosovo will be able to use in the future,” Mr Petkovic said.

In line with the current agreement, licence plates issued so far can remain in use and can be re-registered. In exchange, Belgrade agreed not to issue new licence plates featuring the names of Kosovo’s cities.

Registration plates issued by Serbia carry a two-letter regional code, followed by three numbers and two letters again. The dispute was sparked by license plates starting with the letter KM denoting Kosovska Mitrovica, which is in Kosovo, but Belgrade did not recognise the independence of the territory and issued Serbian license plates to local Serbs.

The goal is to normalize relations

Talks should continue and that is the most important thing because we need to move in the direction of normalising relations between Belgrade and Pristina and enabling local Serbs and Albanians to return to normal life, Petar Petkovic pointed out.

After today’s agreement, we should continue our intensive talks on the proposal of EU, backed by Germany and France, for full normalization of relations. https://t.co/iQHv97Hqgk

— Besnik Bislimi (@BislimiBesnik) November 23, 2022

Intensive talks should continue on the EU proposal, backed by Germany and France, for the full normalisation of relations between the the two side, Kosovo’s chief negotiator, Besnik Bislimi, said after the conclusion of the agreement.

The United States welcomes the agreements reached between Kosovo and Serbia to avoid further escalation of tensions and to concentrate fully and urgently on normalizing relations under the auspices of the EU-facilitated dialogue. https://t.co/MoQGmRAxlL

— Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) November 24, 2022

The United States also welcomed the Belgrade and Pristina’s agreement, resolving the row over licence plates used in northern Kosovo, Ned Price, the US state department’s spokesman said. As seen in Washington, the current agreement will facilitate the deescalation of tensions.

Crossings as usual

On Thursday, vehicles routinely passed through the crossing points between Kosovo and Serbia. At the crossing point at Jarinel, for example, police issued no fines and, abandoning the practice of previous weeks, they stopped handing out warnings on flyers to drivers of Kosovar vehicles with Serb registration plates. There were no tailbacks or disruptions at the border.