Kosovo government expects Serbia to pay for electricity debt in north

The Kosovo government, claims that in the upcoming negotiations with Serbia's Government in Brussels, it will seek compensation of material resources from spent electricity bills from Serbian residents in the country's four northern municipalities.
Such a solution, the Government has warned after publishing the facts that since the end of the recent war in Kosovo in 1999, citizens of the northern part of Kosovo, the consumers of Leposaviq municipalities, Northern Mitrovica, Zubin Potok and Zvecan, have not paid their money bills and that these debts have been billed to citizens from other parts of Kosovo.
According to official data, about 8m euros per year -- or if calculated since the end of the war -- are about 140m euros that citizens of these parts have spent, while consumers of other parts of Kosovo have paid for that value.
Four municipalities in northern Kosovo are inhabited by Serb majority, which over the years have operated outside Kosovo's constitutional judicial system.
Economic Development Minister Valdrin Luka told Radio Free Europe, that the electricity spent by consumers in the northern and fortunate consumers of other regions is unfair.
Kosovo's “government has no budgetary opportunity to return the bills because they are losses that have caused northern citizens, and now as Government we should seek those losses, because it is our right to ask Serbia for compensation”, Luka said.
The “currently includes not only unpaid bills from the north, but also the tranche fees that have been taken for 16 years on behalf of Kosovo. So all of these, we as part of the negotiations will get involved and if we don't make it possible for Serbia to compensate for these losses, then we will look at other forms, such as arbitration form”, Luka says further.
On the other hand, in a response to the Council for the Protection of Human Rights (KMLDNJ), it is said that compensation of means for damaged consumers is a promise that cannot be realised.
This council proposes that the Court of Appeals ruling be implemented to disrupt discriminatory fate on ethnic grounds. As a second step, until a final solution is made and in accordance with the decision of the Court of Appeals' final form, KMDLNJ invites Kosovo citizens not to pay electricity in the billed amount, but to pay only 70 per cent of the amount that is billed.
Otherwise, for this problem, the Ombudsman, in April of this year, had initiated investigations by sending the subject to court as well.
The ombudsman, Hilmi Jashari for Radio Free Europe, confirmed that the final decision by the Court that Appeals is for the Electrical Energy Regulatory Office to suspend the decision that the current spent on that part will be billed for citizens of other regions.
The Supreme Court of Appeals' decision, or judgment, on this matter says that implementation of this decision be suspended due to the irreparable damage that may result in the continuation of the implementation of this decision”.
We are currently at this stage that the Kosovo Regulatory Office (ZRRE) would have to implement the Appeals Court's decision on this matter”, says Jashar.
But officials from the Electric Energy Regulatory Office (ZRRE) in an answer to Radio Free Europe say that “that any decision by the Court is meritable and must be implemented”.
Actually, Z The RRE cannot make any decision to change tariffs due to the lack of the board, which currently has only two members and cannot make any decision due to lack of quorum.
Adelina Murtezay spokeswoman in this office, says that with the laws in force and other regulations -- price definition -- it is the competency of the board's decision-making -- as the only decision-making body in the ERE.
But the fact that there is no ZERE board, for the ombudsman, is seen as unacceptable that this body does not implement the Court's decision.
For us this assessment is unstable or a bit of a hurry, since the judicial decision has nothing to do with the lack of a board that is not functional at the moment”.
It is a judicial decision, and on this concrete issue this bias actually has the power of law, so it should be implemented despite the lack of the ZRE board “says Jashar.
ZRRE officials had earlier declared that since the value of vehicles, for about 8m euros annually, has not been covered by Kosovo institutions, Z. The RRE has been forced to cover up losses, including losses in the country's north, deliver them to all consumers.
In addition to failing to pay spent electricity bills, residents of Kosovo's northern municipalities, since the end of the war, do not even pay bills for water spending, which according to the leaders of the Regional Water Company “Mitrovica”, is estimated to be 12m euros.