CEFTA Committee meeting in Pristina fails, controversy charges on tax

Today's meeting of the CEFTA Committee, due to be held in Pristina, has failed, as Kosovo delegation has rejected the meeting's representative head UNMIK, as Serbia's delegation insisted, has then abandoned the meeting, as has Albania's delegation, Koha.net reports.

Serbia's government, meanwhile, issued a communique, with which it accuses Kosovo of instruction and of imposing the tax on Serbian and Bosnian goods.

According to this, Serbia's government has issued a communique for the media, which media broadcast in Serbia. It says that despite high tensions in reports between Belgrade and Pristina, as they name them Serbian media, representatives of the Government of the Republic of Serbia were present at the regular meeting of the CEFTA Joint Committee in Pristina, as reportedly in the communiqué of the Government of Serbia, to send once again the message of peace and tolerance, and to demonstrate the goodwill of constructively trying to deal with and resolve the issue of imposing of the tax on the part of Kosovo government, as Belgrade calls the official Republic of Kosovo, the provisional Institution of Governance in Pristina, by respecting the CEFTA mechanism and the procedures, Kohanets broadcast.

Serbia has agreed to open the meeting jointly U n NMIC and the provisional institutions of government in Pristina, despite the fact that the chairman of the meeting can be alone U n NMIC as the leader of the CEFTA Agreement in 2018, which is in line with international agreements and UN KS Resolution 1244, said in the communiqué.

Serbia's representative at the start of the meeting has reiterated that he expects Pristina immediately to withdraw radical, illegal and discriminated against measures from November 6th and 21st, which directly violate the CEFTA Agreement and the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, continues the communiqué text.

Always according to the communiqué, “immediately after the government representative's word of the Republic of Serbia, meeting and abandoning representatives of Pristina's provisional institutions of government, then continued to chair the meeting. U n NMIC, but then Albania's delegation releases the meeting, and so does the quorum to continue gathering”.

“Abandoning the gathering of both delegations directly sabotaged the effort to have the agreement reached on the peaceful road to resolve the” problem, Serbia's government communiqué adds.

His concern earlier had been manifested by the UN secretary-general's special representative and chief UNMIK, Zahir Tan.

“As far as tariffs have been imposed on Serbian and Bosnian goods, such actions constitute open violation of CEFTA agreements and they must withdraw”, the communique said.

It has continued to call on leaders of all sides to demonstrate greater maturity and avoid further provocations that could jeopardise the likelihood of normalising relations or potentially escalating tensions.

The communique stresses that Serbia has again demonstrated constructive approaches, with dialogue and peaceful talks to solve this problem, but has faced construction of the other side.

Immediately after the meeting ended, representatives of Serbia because, as Serbian media reports report, security risks have released Pristina to forward UNMIK and KFOR to Serbia.

Koha.net has made efforts to contact Trade and Industry Minister Andrew Shala to get opinions from the Kosovo side regarding the government's communiqué of Serbia, but this has been impossible, just as has been the attempt to contact Sytrime Dervisolin, head of the Department for Trade in this ministry.