The European Union as the mediator in Belgrade-Pristina dialogue: What influenced mediation effectiveness?

Abstract

The thesis examines the European Union as a mediator in the case of Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. It tends to discover which factors led to lower mediation effectiveness after 2015, by EU's mediation strategy, leverage and coherence. The thesis is designed as a qualitative case study which compares three different stages of the case by implementing a combination of congruence method and process tracing. Drawing for the content and document analysis as well as four interviews conducted and two personal communications, the thesis analyses the factors which influenced effectiveness and compares them throughout three different phases of the mediation. In the end, the analysis shows that while strategy remained the same, levels coherence and leverages changed and concluded that it was the weaking of EU's leverage strength that influenced mediation effectiveness the most.