Association, towards formation or return to zero?

Government officials say representatives of the management team, which consists of representatives of the Serb community living in Kosovo, will soon be called for consultations by Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, to see the continued work regarding drafting the Association statute.

Avni Arifi, the Kosovo Government's co-ordinator for dialogue with Serbia, tells Radio Free Europe that the country's executive is interested in having the access to the Association statute completed within the deadline of 4 months.

It's a process, which has mostly ministerial supervision I'm talking about the Ministry of Local Power. For a very short time, we're going to start looking for reports of how far the work has reached. The goal is to complete everything on a four-month deadline. However, there is a process, which will then be sent to the Constitutional Court, the decree, despite the draft Association statute”, Arifi says.

Days earlier, through a media communiqué, the management team for drafting the Association statute had stated that “in line with the competencies and working mandate”, this team “would consult OSCE representatives regarding the further work, as well as competent institutions' instance in Pristina”.

Arifi emphasises that the Kosovo government is ready to offer additional consultations, but so far, the management team has not yet asked for something like that.

The “is meant to offer additional consultation, additional expertise or instruction. The goal is to produce the draft Association. Consultations, if required, are done through the Minister of Local Power. I'm not aware of any consultation or any specific request that came from the management team. So far, we haven't reached”, Arifi points out.

But, on the other hand, former Kosovo Assembly President from the Serb community's ranks Petar Miletic says distrustful that the Association of Serb majority municipalities could be formed just as originally envisioned.

Speaking to Radio Free Europe, he names the formation of the new management team as a lighthouse, because access to the establishment of association, as he says, is insincere even from official Pristina, but also from official Belgrade.

“I think that both political elites -- whether governments -- want this confession to the Serb Community and the Brussels Agreement to emerge less affected and less negative points before the opinion. I don't expect positive results. All of this we've seen and again will come to the same problem, competencies for Community”, Miletic says.

He has added that Serbs will insist that the Association have competencies that guarantee there will be executive functions for jobs to deal with. Meanwhile, according to him, the Government of Kosovo will not allow that, and at this point, as he says, the process will return to zero.

“Absolutely, the process is in zero. As far as the Community is concerned, I think it's zero and it's never even moved from zero. I think it's going to end up at zero” again, Miletic points out.

However, the management team for drafting the Association of Serb-run municipalities statute has stated that it will base its work solely on the basis of agreements reached during the dialogue in Brussels, between Belgrade and Pristina, respecting the European Charter for local self-government, as well as other European principles and democratic values in this area.