The European Union says it will start lifting sanctions this month first imposed on Kosovo in summer 2023, when Pristina implemented the results of controversial elections in the Serb-dominated north despite warnings from Brussels.

The move could potentially resuscitate the Balkan country's EU hopes, allowing this to be the year its EU membership application, submitted in late 2022, can finally be assessed by the European Commission. It may also allow for a restart of the Brussels-facilitated dialogue with Serbia after a two-year hiatus.

The sanctions raised eyebrows when first adopted as they lacked precedent when it came to the bloc's relationship with an EU hopeful. For starters, they were not sanctions in a strict political and procedural sense and have been referred to as "measures" in the "corridor lingo" of Brussels.

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EU sanctions must be presented to the 27 EU member states in a formal legal act and then unanimously agreed. This was the case, for example, when Brussels imposed asset freezes and visa bans on individuals from EU candidate country Turkey in 2019 due to the unauthorized drilling for gas in the Eastern Mediterranean.

With Kosovo, nothing of the sort happened. Instead, the EU foreign policy chief at the time, Josep Borrell, wrote a letter to EU member states outlining the measures and recommending the capitals implement them even though there was no obligation. The directorate-general for enlargement, the EU's department dealing with countries wanting to join the bloc, then informed Kosovo of what would hit them.

These measures were mainly EU-related, meaning funding for Kosovo from the bloc's common budget would be frozen, high-level visits would be on hold, and the Stabilization and Association Council -- the main political conduit for Brussels-Pristina relations -- would not meet until further notice.

Intriguingly, while there was no formal EU unanimity to impose the sanctions, member states later stepped in to demand unanimity to lift them. In one of his last acts before leaving office in 2024, Borrell asked for the measures to be removed, but there was no consensus and the initial decision stood.

Some momentum in Kosovo's favor came with the new European Commission team starting at the tail-end of 2024 as diplomats noted that outgoing Hungarian Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi had "a soft spot" for Serbia and prevented any real movement in favor of Pristina.

An approach of "gradual lifting" of the measures was announced, though what it entailed wasn't spelled out. Both European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and new EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas visited the country in 2025, dismissing the notion of a ban on high-level visits even though no high-ranking Kosovar politician came to Brussels on a bilateral visit that year.

The political breakthrough came at an EU-Western Balkans summit in Brussels on December 17, when Von der Leyen announced that the measures would be lifted. This came after what Brussels called "smooth and peaceful" local elections in north Kosovo in October reversing the move from 2023.

But that wasn't the end of the story.

In the run-up to the summit France, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, and Spain pushed for a two-step lifting in which roughly half the frozen money -- 216 million euros -- could be released for Pristina imminently. The remainder, some 205 million euros, would be distributed first after the national parliamentary elections on December 28; they argued that incumbent Prime Minister Albin Kurti could benefit too much electorally if all the cash was released immediately.