Kosovo Serbs want Belgrade to run education, welfare, health

They also believe that the Association should have management rights for public enterprises in the Serb majority north, such as the Trepca and Weiman complex two companies that have been the objects of fierce debates between Belgrade and Pristina.

KA LLXO.com has managed to get some reports of meetings of the Kosovo Serb team, tasked by authorities in Pristina with drafting the draft statute during May and June.

The documents reveal that during a 21 May meeting, the heads of public enterprises in Kosovo, which are still controlled by Serbia, have said the association should ensure the economic stability of Serb municipalities in Kosovo as a “precondition for their survival and economic development. ”

Jovan Dimkiq, the leader of the Trepca Mine in northern Mitrovica, has said all public and social companies in this region should be managed by Association.

“Bashkim Talks agreed that a strong future jurisdiction of association in the field of economy is a prerequisite for the stable functioning of these systems in the future,” The report writes.

In October 2016, Kosovo ratified a Trepca law that would transform the Trepca Indsutative complex into an action company, of which the Kosovo government has 80 for the stake, while 20 per cent would belong to workers. The law has not yet been implemented.

This law was strongly opposed by Serbia, which opposes Trepca ownership from Kosovo and says it wants to protect the jobs of Serbs working there.

The Serb list, the main party representing the Serb community in Kosovo, boycotted Kosovo institutions in protest for six months after the law was passed in the Assembly.

Health and Social Care

Reports also reveal that during meetings held in May, representatives of health and social work sectors have told the management team these two sectors must remain linked to Serbia.

Size would be a “from the key sectors in which association will have special jurisdiction,” The report written on 30 May writes.

Representatives of Serbian-led health centres and hospitals in Kosovo have told the team that the Association “should ensure the health and quality development of the primary and secondary health system sector, and maintain the staff in which this system is based. ”

They have said the only guarantee of the existence of such a system would be “a permanent support in Serbia's health system. ”

The report cites Milan Ivanovic, the director of the medical centre in Mitrovica, saying the health system “is the main pillar of the Serbian state in Kosovo” reasons why the association should have full autonomy at this point.

During the meeting on 31 May, social work centres have said that association should have full supervision over the existing network of social work centres, which should remain linked to Serbia's social system.

Gradimir Nastic, head of the Centre for Social Work in the municipality of Leposaviqi, has told them that Pristina's authorities do not co-operate with Serb social centres and association must resolve this issue.

The Education System

Similar proposals have been made regarding the education system, where the actors want association to be the bridge in the majority of Serb municipalities in Kosovo and institutions in Serbia. Serbian schools in Kosovo still use Serbia's curriculum and do not report to the Kosovo Ministry of Education.

During a relevant meeting, the transcript says: “Education System must remain within the Ministry of the Republic of Serbia. ”

The Kosovo Ministry of Education has told Kosovo Press news agency in April that has changed Deputy Minister Bajrush Caesar, who deals with the issues of non-most communities, <x0 with schools that are not integrated into the system of the Republic of Kosovo. ”

Education has also been a topic of debate between Kosovo and Serbia. Under an agreement reached in 2015, Kosovo had to supply school books to Albanian communities in Serbia, until Serbia had to do the same for Serbs in Kosovo the first time the two parties had reached such an agreement since 1999.

However, in December 2015, Serbia banned trucks that were transporting about 100,000 elementary school books from Kosovo to the Presevo Valley, saying they are politically unacceptable because they refer to Kosovo as an independent state.

Kosovo's <x0th) history report on history textbooks in Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia” published in December 2015 notes major differences between the interpretations of history in textbooks in Kosovo and Albania on one hand, and on the other in books used in Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro.

For example, while Kosovo's school office writes extensively for crimes committed by Serbs against Albanians in 1912-13 and 1919-1919, there is no reference to these crimes in Serbian books.

Similarly, crimes committed by Albanians during German occupations from 1941 to 1944 are present in Serbian books, but not in books used in Kosovo or Albania.