Prime Minister Albin Kurti has applied for Kosovo's membership in the European Union, launching a process that could take years, if not decades, and depends on normalizing relations with neighboring Serbia, Reuters reported.

Kurti presented the application in Prague, the EU presidency. 

While members of the 27-nation EU do not want further expansion, the war in Ukraine has forced them to focus more efforts on improving relations with six Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and Serbia.

Kosovo is not a member of the United Nations, and five EU states - Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus - have refused to recognize its statehood.

Kosovo still needs to normalize relations with Serbia before it can join the EU. The bloc is working on a deal it hopes both sides will agree to within a year.

EU and U.S. ambassadors this week urged Kosovo and Serbia to remain calm amid the ongoing crisis in northern Kosovo, where local Serbs have erected barricades to prevent police movement, part of tensions between the authorities and the Kosovo Serb minority.