Serbs love Belgrade, but get money from Pristina

Pristina and Belgrade parallelly share millions of euros for four Serb-run northern municipalities -- Leposaviq, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and northern Mitrovica.

But these tools, according to economic experts and representatives of Serbian nongovernmental organisations, are not known where and what they are spent on.

The northern part of Kosovo, since the post-war, has operated on the basis of a parallel system organised by Belgrade.

Within the Brussels dialogue, Pristina and Belgrade have reached agreement on the integration of this part into the framework of Kosovo's constitutional system, where investments constituted an important element, along with free elections, but that this integration process remains unfinished.

Economic Affairs expert Naim Gashi tells Radio Free Europe that in the past 20 years there is no information about how hundreds of millions of euros of Kosovo citizens' taxes were spent, donations from internationals, but also funds the Government of Serbia provides to prevent the integration of the Serb community into Kosovo institutions.

If we take into account all investments declared by the Government of Serbia and those ranging from the Kosovo Government for the country's north if they had gone to development projects then the country's north would flourish”.

The “actually by not having an integration for the Serb community in Kosovo institutions and the inability to extend authority there like auditors and justice institutions has enabled there to become a major misuse of Kosovo budgetary means and should not be ruled out the possibility that even misuse of the tools coming from the Government of Serbia” flourishes, Gashi says.

He adds that the overwhelming share of these tools invested in Kosovo's budget and Serbia's budget go to groups that do not respect any Kosovo law.

This non-calculation for the tools of the Government of Kosovo and of Serbia, divided by the north, according to Gashi, must cease.

The extension of the order and law in every part of Kosovo is email and spending budget resources without any control and without detailed financial reports should not take place because every euro citizen's spent tax should have accounts for what are invested, which procurement procedures have been followed, and what has been the result of them”, Gashi says.

On the other hand, Nenad Maksimovic from the Centre for Peace and Tolerance in Gracanica tells Radio Free Europe that it is difficult to make an objective assessment of the impact of all financing that has been done in the north.

There is no Commission for Polling of the Republic of Serbia report on financing all activities on Serbia's part throughout the territory of Kosovo. On the other hand, the Fund for the north, with which customs duties are collected from border crossings in northern Kosovo, work with limited capacities and so far only certain infrastructure projects have been implemented. We may see tangible progress in infrastructure projects, but so far they have not significantly influenced population life.”

The “means, even further, all funding from central institutions is being kept in some way secret, and citizens do not know in large measure how those funds were spent”, Maksimovic said.

He has expressed the opinion that, however, those who had to be users of these funds have not seen concrete results.

Otherwise, the Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia days ago announced that the project investment plan in 10 majority Serb municipalities in Kosovo has been prepared. Serbia's investments in these predominantly Serb municipalities amount to about 200m euros.

The largest <x0m-euro investment will be made for employees in education and health (71m euros) for residential “The Valley of the Sun” (25m euros), for “Trepca” (13m euros), for the Hospital Centre (10m euros), for the water supply (6m euros)”, says a Kosovo office report on the Government of Serbia.

For more investments in municipalities in northern Kosovo, in 2013 under the interim customs agreement reached in the Kosovo dialogue, Serbia was also established.

In a response sent to Radio Europe Free of charge from the Ministry of Finance's Office, the total of tools transferred from 2013 to now from the Kosovo Budget Account to the Trust Development Fund account is over 15m euros, of which in 2018 (January 7 September) have been transferred over 1.2m euros.