This is the Government's decision to abolish tax and implement reciprocity against Serbia (Document)

Acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti, before making the decision, said tonight that “we are beginning gradual implementation of reciprocity as a replacement for the fee, and I believe you have noticed that we refer only to reciprocity with Serbia, which means that with Bosnia and Herzegovina we remove the fee 100 percent without any additional”.

After the decision is made, the communique issued by the incumbent government says:

The incumbent “government of the Republic of Kosovo, continuing its commitment to fulfilling its legal and constitutional obligations, has held the corresponding meeting in which it has adopted the decision to gradual implement reciprocity as a principle in relations with Serbia.

The decision obliges that in relations with Serbia the nominations of phytosanitary certificates and other forward documents, as well as veterinarian certificates and other forward documents, be used in accordance with Constitution and legislation in force,

The decision adopted today is obliged to implement border police, customs, the Food and Veterinary Agency, the Agency for Products and Medical Equipment and other responsible institutions”, the decision said.

The implementation of this decision will be revised at least once a month. But the decisions of Government No. November 21, 2018 and No. 06/82 of December 28, 2018. The decision will remain in effect until June 15, 2020, when its implementation assessment will be made.

The government estimates that reciprocity measures are an instrument of relations between sovereign states known by general principles of international law through different international agreements, such as:

-The General Agreement for Tarifat and the 1947 Exchange (GATT), amended in 1994;

) Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) 2007

-The Transport Community Treaty signed by the European Union, Serbia and the Republic of Kosovo, along with other Western Balkan countries;

Kosovo Trade Policy, adopted by the Government in 2009, aims for benefits from trade liberalisation to be higher and more stable. But Serbia has established a series of non-tariff trade barriers to the Republic of Kosovo, including barriers to the transit, technical barriers and political barriers. Thus, since CEFTA's entry into power, Serbia has damaged exporters and importers from the Republic of Kosovo and caused a high trade deficit for the Republic of Kosovo.

These are sufficient reasons for the incumbent Government of the Republic of Kosovo to approve this decision”.

Today's decision, the Government has also attached the proposal for reciprocity measures to regulate trade with Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, set forth by the Ministry's Workers Group for Trade Barries.

Otherwise, the 100 per cent customs fee was imposed by the past Kosovo government, former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, in November 2018.
Since the introduction of the tax on products imported from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, imports from these countries have dropped by 99 percent.

Before the customs tax was imposed, Serbia was the largest exporter of products in Kosovo. This state, before November 21st, of 2018 when taxes were imposed 100 per cent during one day has exported goods worth about 1.2m euros or about 450m euros in one year to Kosovo.

The 100 per cent tax on imports from Serbia has influenced dialogue on normalisation of reports between Kosovo and Serbia to end.

Against this tax, since its deployment, the United States of America and the European Union had been declared, as dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia had since been interrupted.

A reciprocity measure against Serbia, Kosovo had applied it in July 2011.

This reciprocity measure at the time was taken after Serbia for three years after declaring independence in Kosovo in 2008 had blocked goods from Kosovo due to the shift of seals from UNMIK to those of the Republic of Kosovo.