Kosovo Railways in the North, Under Administration of Serbia

Agron Thaci, chief executive in company “Infrakos”, the company that deals with railway infrastructure, tells Radio Free Europe that the railway line in northern Kosovo requires quick solutions.

Technically, this railway line, Thaci adds, is in order, but is not managed by Kosovo authorities.

We operate until the South Mitrovica, to the Ibër Bridge, while on the rest operates a Serbia organisation and we are currently not responsible for operating without any agreement or ordinance”.

Let's hope that 2020 will be the case that we will be resolved so that we can move on to management and management even in that part of the railway, because it doesn't make sense that we have to have our police, our customs, in Jarinje Downside, and there to circulate the next train without permission, without any consent from the local authorities”, Thaci says.

Thaci adds that they have consistently applied to the Kosovo government to become a solution for taking this part of the railway under administration, as it belongs to Kosovo.

According to him, the railway line in the north should be one of the topics of discussion in dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia in Brussels.

Radio Free Europe has made efforts to contact Kosovo Government officials and former representatives of the negotiating team in the Kosovo-Serbia talks, but they have not responded.

The dialogue on normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia, which has developed with the European Union's mediation, has been interrupted at the end of 2018, when the Kosovo government, led by Ramush Haradinaj, has imposed a 100 per cent tax on goods from Serbia, due to what it was said, the destructive policy of the latter towards Kosovo.

For this reason, Serbia has refused to return to the negotiating table, meanwhile, Kosovo has refused to remove the tax.

Sadullah Avdiu, professor of course “Railways Projection”, at the Faculty of Construction and Architecture, tells Radio Free Europe that railway investments are millions and Kosovo needs investors.

But, as he says, no one would invest in closed-type railways, so according to him, solutions should be found for the international railway line with Serbia connected by North Mitrovica.

“In the situation that are today railways are not functional, they are far from called functional, but they have to invest. Investments are huge, and Kosovo is not known how much it is capable of investing by personal means”, he says.

However, it is difficult to find an investor who would invest in a closed railway, so there must be a solution for the international line associated with Serbia. Serbia has resolved railway transport with the 8th corridor, so as long as it allows it to allow the international community this opportunity, it will keep the Kosovo railway transport of the isolated type (national Kurdish that does not go to international transport)”, Avdiu says.

Currently, in Kosovo regular lines for internal transport through trains, there are in the Pristina delegation, Peja, Hani of Elezi Fushe Kosovo and vice versa.

While, for international transport, Kosovo railways have a regular train called “fast track”, which circulates once a day at the Pristina delegation Skopje APU Pristina.

Kosovo is now involved in projects to modernise railways, investments that enter the package for approved investments at the Western Balkans summit in August 2015 in Vienna, within the framework of the European Union's broader agenda for promoting connection to the region and to the EU.

The railway line that crosses Kosovo with northern Macedonia and Serbia is 250km long, out of which 148km are in Kosovo and the rest in northern Macedonia and Serbia.

The rehabilitation of railway lines in Kosovo, says the executive director of Infrakos '%s' Agron Thaci, started this year and is expected to be finalised in 2021.

This year we have signed the first contract and the works have been launched for the Kosovo Fushe Han of Elez segment at 65 kilometers of rehabilitation and modernisation of this segment. We've started preparing the second segment, and at the beginning of next year we'll have the company for this segment in order to develop the works. The first segment is expected to last two years, the second segment is expected to last a year and a half,”, Thaci says.

Kosovo, adds Thaci, with the completion of the Kosovo railway rehabilitation project, will benefit European Union standard railways and be part of the regional railway network and beyond.

The speed of trains, due to technical conditions on the current lines, can take place at 30 miles [50 km] per hour, while with railway renovations, trains will circulate up to 150 miles per hour.