French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have both urged for new elections in Northern Kosovo to help ease the recent ethnic unrest with outbreaks of violent protests. Ethnic Serbs have been protesting against the election of ethnic Albanian mayors in towns with a Serbian majority. The Serb population mostly boycotted the elections and the legitimacy of the elections is being questioned when less than 5% of voters participated. Macron and Scholz have consulted with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani urging the leaders to help de-escalate the situation. Meanwhile, Scholz said a permanent solution to the longstanding conflict between Serbia and its former province Kosovo was close to being reached. Kosovo broke away from Serbia in 2008 but violence between the two reached a peak in 1998-99 which left more than 10,000 dead and over a million homeless. NATO peacekeepers have been present since that time.
