Kosovo–Serbia border

A border for one side

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, after a NATO intervention in 1999. Serbia and its ally Russia do not recognise it as an independent state and have blocked its efforts to join the UN. Ethnic Serbs, a majority in the north, do not recognise Pristina’s authority and remain politically loyal to Belgrade.^[1]

Plates and barricades

About 50,000 Serbs in northern Kosovo used Serbian-issued licence plates and identity cards. Kosovo’s prime minister, Albin Kurti, presented rules requiring them to switch as reciprocity: Serbia had not recognised Kosovo documents for years and issued Kosovo travellers a temporary document under an EU-mediated 2011 arrangement. In September 2021 and again on 31 July 2022 local Serbs parked trucks and tankers across the roads to the Jarinje and Brnjak crossings; the 2022 barricades came down after Pristina postponed the rules.^[1]

In December 2023 Serbia decided to let cars with Kosovo’s “RKS” plates enter from 1 January 2024. Kurti said Kosovo would take an equivalent step once its border police confirmed that Serbia was implementing the decision in full, and the EU welcomed the move as part of the two sides’ normalisation agreement.^[2]

“We will take our equivalent decision as a matter of inter-state relations as soon as our border police documents and verifies that Serbia is implementing its decision in full”^[2]