Bislimi: Agreement with Serbia on energy has almost been achieved, problem only plates

The chief of the Kosovo negotiating team in the dialogue in Brussels, Besnik Bislim, has confirmed that the energy agreement has almost been reached.

However, not that one for the license plates, for which the Serb side is to blame.

In an interview for N1 television, he said dialogue “is not following the pace Kosovo side is targeting”.

This slowdown is largely a consequence of the strategy that has certainly been chosen by the negotiator side from Belgrade, which creates unnecessary obstacles to the processes we are going through. This is also true of the energy deal and the license plates”, Bislim says.

As far as energy is concerned, he says only one step of nine points has remained that the Serb side should take and that he expects it to take over the next week.

“I think there is no reason for neither side to say that it cannot immediately start implementing the” agreement, he said.

Bislimi has added that the energy regulator in Kosovo has 100 days to implement the agreement.

Responding to the question of why there is no agreement on the license plate issue, Bislimi stresses that the Serbian side “refused to choose one of the options that were on the table”.

We had three options and each side should have selected one of them. If we don't choose the same options, then negotiators or heads of state should join these two options in one, but the Serb side refused to deploy and chose the obstruction as a solution”, Bislimi said.

He has added that Kosovo's office director, Petar Petkov, has promised to come to Brussels with a proposal that will represent a permanent solution and that is in line with the European Union's best standards.

But he presented no solution. There was an unscrupulous fraud that Miroslav Lajcak committed because he was the guarantor of the success of this meeting,” claims Bislim.

He further said Kosovo is in the process of drafting an alternative plan that will have all elements of reciprocity.

One of the conflicting points is the Association of Serbian municipalities, and in this regard Bislimi stresses that sharing and presenting that problem is artificial.

He adds that they are interested in considering additional modalities for the protection of minorities as a whole.

“If Serbia requires additional rights for the Serb minority in Kosovo, they should prove to be a good model for improving minority rights and show us what space they offer minorities in Serbia and we can adopt them even in Kosovo”, Bislimi said, conveys Klakosova.tv.

Asked whether Kosovo is obliged to implement the current agreement, Bislimi said some of the signed agreements were temporary.

Also in the question of whether the Kosovo side will make an alternative proposal, Bislimi said they are interested in discussing the best mechanisms to ensure the advancement and protection of minority interests, but “only after we are convinced that no one in the region is challenging territorial integrity and sovereignty”.

Bislimi also claims that before the international community and local Serbs, mechanisms and funds that enable the integration of municipalities have been introduced.