In a failed effort to salvage the Serbia-Kosovo deal brokered by former President Donald Trump with a stunt on a border crossing between the Balkans state and its renegade province, the former US diplomat Ric Grenell only managed to ignite Twitter spat with an EU colleague.
Publishing his stunt on Tweeter, Grenell pointed that Trump got this crossing operational ‘as part of the 4 Economic Normalization Agreements he achieved’.
The former US Special Envoy for Serbia-Kosovo talks and Trump’s acting director of national intelligence, held on Thursday afternoon press conference at the Merdare border crossing between Serbia and Kosovo, discussing wide range of issues.
Grenell , among other things, shared his frustration about the lack of implementation of the historic Belgrade -Pristina economic normalization agreement during the Biden administration. The deal was brokered by the Trump administration in September 2020 and also included mutual recognition of Kosovo and Israel.
Situating his symbolic press gaggle at the Merdare border crossing, Grenell was allegedly trying to rise political awareness about this geopolitical hotspot that fell off Biden’s agenda, stressing that people of the Western Balkans deserve American leadership and more than just “lip service” from the Biden administration, something the administration is not delivering.
The former diplomat underlined that many Americans are frustrated since the deal to open borders for business has come to nothing, calling up Biden administration step-up and defend and enforce the policies of economic agreement it says it supports.
Trump has later praised Grenell’s event, calling him “my Envoy Ambassador” and urged both Serbia and Kosovo to not abandon the historic agreement for the sake of long-term prosperity.
Yet, Grenell’s tweet was blasted by the German Member of the European Parliament and envoy for Kosovo, Viola von Cramon, who accused him for stealing credit for the crossing that was built with EU taxpayers’ money and called the US to bring money next time instead of just renaming the place.
Grenell promptly shot back to Von Cramon, pointing that while the EU might’ve build the border crossing, it was Trump that got it open since the two sides didn’t seem to listen to the EU.
Soon after, Von Cramon raised the spat to a different level, pointing in her reply that the EU prefers not to topple a democratic government and replace it with a new one that would listen to them.
She was obviously alluding to Washington’s support for the last year’s no-confidence vote against Kosovo PM Albin Kurti that resulted wit signing of the deal after his replacement.
Yet, that plan backfired since Kurti returned to power this spring and the heavily armed police he sent in September seize two checkpoints with Serbia, which led to a tense standoff that almost escalated into another war.
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