Since early 2102 there has been an intensification of the EU-Kosovo relationship, with a number of important developments giving increasing practical effect to Kosovo’s ‘EU perspective’. A key such development was the issuing by the European Commission in October 2012 of a feasibility study for a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) between the EU and Kosovo. Whilst being much taken up with the identification of numerous perceived deficiencies in Kosovo’s public systems, the study offered encouragement to Kosovo in that it identified benchmarks that, if achieved, would enable the Commission to be able to recommend to the Council the opening of SAA negotiations. The contents of the Commission’s report were broadly endorsed by the Council in December. Kosovo was subsequently judged, in a joint report issued in April 2013 by the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, to have met the benchmarks.