Hope for Move in Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue, Agreement expected between Kurti and Vuciqi

Finally, there seems to be movement in Kosovo-Serbia dialogue soon. According to the European Union's charge for Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak next week is also expected an agreement of importance under dialogue between the two countries. The European Union became known that it is about the energy agreement for Serbs in northern Kosovo.

We will have another meeting between the top negotiators next week. Hopefully, we will be able to announce about a very important agreement, and I am also hoping to make the two leaders together in Brussels, for the third summit before summer holidays”, Lajciak said.

Finalization of Energy Issues

The European Union through Foreign Affairs and Security Policy spokesperson Peter Stano expects Kosovo and Serbia delegations to finalise the energy topic next week. “The EU expects the sides to close the energy issue over the next week in Brussels at the level of chief negotiators”, Stano said. Representatives of the European Union have attended a meeting held last week in Istanbul, Turkey, between the Serbian side and the Kosovo Electrical Energy Distribution Company (KEDS). KEDS from 2013 carried out the distribution of electricity across Kosovo's entire territory.

Vuciq: Agreement to End

Belgrade authorities and Pristina authorities early in the week also warned that they are close to the agreement on resolving electricity problems for Serbs in northern Kosovo, who since post-war do not pay electricity bills. Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, said the agreement on energy with Kosovo is towards completion, and on this issue he said “has been negotiating with the Kosovar Power Distributation Company (KEDS). We have had negotiations with the Turkish side, with KEDS, for the presence in northern Kosovo. We have agreed on this and hope that only technical aspects remain to be adjusted, and we will have good results in the coming days”, Vuciq said. Even Kosovo's government, in turn, confirmed that the parties are very close to resolving the issue of electricity supply and transportation in the four Serb majority municipalities in northern Kosovo, in northern Mitrovica, Leposaviq, Zvevilan and Zubin Potok.

Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister Besnik Bislimi, who is also Kosovo's chief negotiator in talks with Serbia, said this issue would be adjusted “by respecting the agreement reached between Kosovo and Serbia in April 2013”. On behalf of Kosovo, the government of the Republic of Kosovo alone negotiates. The meeting between the KEDS and the Serbian side, organised in Istanbul on June 9th, has had only the target of providing guarantees for the four services agreed on in 2015: the establishment of energy measures, the maintenance of measurements, billing and indiculation, and it has met the task of”, Bislimi wrote in his social profile.

Northern Kosovo Serbs have not paid for energy

The agreement reached in 2013 on energy under the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue envisions that besides the Electricity Distributment Company KEDS in Kosovo, another power distribution company in northern Kosovo is licensed. Since then this agreement has not been implemented, although pressure has been made by the international community. Kosovo's northern Serbs since the end of the war are regularly supplied with electricity, but do not pay for it. It has never been made clear from whom Serbs in the north are supplied with electricity. COSTT, which is the System, Transition and Electricity Market Operator in Kosovo, says the supply in the north is made by operators licensed by the Kosovo Energy Regulatory Office, while Belgrade authorities say electricity in northern Kosovo is provided by Serbia's electro-rrete.

With agreement in principle of 2013 between Kosovo and Serbia on electricity in northern Kosovo, it is envisioned except KEDS, another electricity distribution company, named “Drustvo Elektrosever D.O.”, is licensed in Kosovo. From the end of the war from 1999 until 2017, the current spent in northern Kosovo has paid off other Kosovo citizens registered by their bills as energy loss on the network in the north. By 2017, after a court in Kosovo cut off this practice of electricity for northern Serbs, the operator of the System, Transition and Electricity Market in Kosovo is paying for (KOSTT). According to them, losses from the current in the north are about 40m euros in 2021 alone. / DW