EU chief says corruption continues to have deep roots in Kosovo

The head of the EU Office in Kosovo, Natalia Apostolova, has expressed concern that corruption continues to remain rooted in Kosovo and urged Kosovo young people to take the role in fighting this negative phenomenon for the country's society.

Apostolova warned that Kosovo will not achieve progress in its journey towards Europe without the active engagement of young people and cautioned that it is important for Kosovo youth to engage in prevention and fighting corruption.

She made these comments during a conversation with high school students on the “theme to support cultural change: the role of new generations in shaping tomorrow's” values.

In this case, Apostolova looked to the students, cautioned them that they could be the main forces fighting corruption, organised crime and all the evils that hinder Kosovo's development.

She has mentioned some of the ways they can do it, where she mentioned protests, but it has immediately been clarified by saying that she is not inviting them to organize demonstrations.

“I am concerned because of corruption and because of the fact that corruption still remains rooted in Kosovo, some of you may feel discouraged, but please don't let this happen, because if not you, Kosovo talent, who will bring Kosovo's talent to match it by standards. Kosovo will not achieve progress in its journey to Europe without the active engagement of young people and I think that in your case this is inevitable, because you will be the ones to carry this progress very soon. Therefore, it is very important to engage in prevention and fighting corruption. This should be the mentality in the family, the mentality in schools and at the University”, she said.

Apostolova has said that today's youth are future leaders, while pledging that the EU will continue to help Kosovo in the fight against crime and corruption.

While, Education, Science and Technology Minister Shyqi Bytyqi has indicated that fighting corruption cannot be done by day, but a co-operation of all is needed.

The prevention of corruption is much easier than fighting corruption. Now if we talk at the top level we can no longer talk about prevention, we need to talk about fighting corruption. And when we talk to you young people who have the best opportunity, we can talk about preventing corruption - that is, the easiest phase, and that prevention can be made by you young people. How can we do it, be educated that corruption, nepotism, wrong preference is not good for our country, for our young people, for our citizens”, he said.

Minister Bytyqi said corruption in Kosovo's youth is driving the job out where, according to him, young people are seeing some people create wealth by not working at all.

Since the topic of discussion was on education, Anti-corruption Agency director Shaip Havolly has shown the cases that as agencies have addressed this year, but has stressed that there is corruption in education as well.

It's true, even in education there's corruption of various levels, ranging from high to technical level. The Anti-corruption Agency this year has handled a large number of cases mainly at Pristina University and other public universities, without excluding other private universities. The agency has handled a large number of these cases, mainly dealing with nepotism, raising academic staff that do not meet criteria, conditions, familiarisation, and bribery, plagiarism. Also, a number of senior officials allegedly illegally enriched”, he said.

The Ambassador of the Netherlands to Kosovo, Gerie Williams, has said fighting corruption is very important, as corruption has made everything more expensive for citizens.

The “is identifying the presence of corruption and not supporting it. Then it is the war and the prevention of corruption to avoid its presence. I think that's the fundamental problem with corruption that's deeply rooted and it's very difficult to avoid, but it has to start somewhere. So I think that Kosovo has already started to deal with this, I think that the level of treatment can rise because it is very practical corruption and makes everything more expensive, more costly,”, she said.

Even the representative of Italy's Embassy in Kosovo, Matteo Corradini, has declared corruption prevents a society from developing in many ways.

Corruption is a phenomenon that greatly hinders and disrupts society from any development, from the legal, economic perspective, and in many other ways. There are legal instruments to implement it and fight against this phenomenon, there are procedures to follow. But all of these are concrete realisation of ethical values that are justice and respect for people who are elements that enable a society to fight for a general benefit”, he said.

By contrast, today's discussion is organised under the week against corruption