EU wants concrete steps by Kosovo to ease tensions before lifting sanctions –envoy

Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (not pictured) welcomes EU Special Representative for Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue Miroslav Lajcak to the Western Balkans conference at the Chancellery in Vienna, Austria June 18, 2021. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo

PRISTINA (Reuters) - The European Union will not lift political and economic sanctions on Kosovo unless the government de-escalates tensions with ethnic Serbs, EU envoy Miroslav Lajcak said on Tuesday during a visit in Pristina.

EU countries imposed punitive measures on ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo after Prime Minister Albin Kurti's government failed to heed EU and U.S. requests to defuse strife in the country's north following the worst clashes in over a decade.