Hoti: Government Has Displaced Dialogue From Final Agreement to Technical Issues

It calls for international support to be sought only for final agreement, not other issues.

Hoti also speaks of the situation with the rise in prices in the country for what he considers government management to be extremely weak.

Democratic League of Kosovo MP says he hopes Osman and Kurti have received the necessary messages in Washington.

The question of dialogue should not be put aside, I hope that the leaders of institutions have received the necessary messages in Washington. Personally, I am concerned about the approach of this government to dialogue because it is shifting the focus of dialogue from the final agreement on mutual recognition on technical issues that may not lead to the final agreement for mutual recognition”, he told Kosova Press.

Speaking of the dialogue process, Hoti estimates that Kurti Government should stay within the principles built by its government.

The government must stay within the principles that we have agreed with our international partners with the preliminary government in terms of the dialogue process, which we dialogue only for final agreement, for mutual recognition, that we disagree on nothing while we agree on all of this because it now depends on Serbia. To dialogue on specific issues that improve the lives of citizens in both states that do not solve the final problem. The main problem is non-recognition among states, all issues that we have in daily communication with Serbia are the derivatives of this problem of mutual recognition between the two countries. So my call is to build international support only for the final agreement, and not on other questions”, the former prime minister followed.

While in terms of the energy crisis, Hoti says the government has no strategic access to it.

According to him, difficult winter is expected and preparation is needed on the part of institutions to overcome difficulties.

Until now, no (there is no action plan for the energy crisis), forecasts are that winter will be difficult even because of the energy crisis that will be deeper than last year because of the war in Ukraine, sanctions on Russia, complete reshuffle of the energy market, and the rise in the prices that seem to continue until the end of the year, possibly until next spring. We haven't seen any concrete measures yet to prepare... There's still time in the next 2-3 months to prepare for winter, but the problem is that we're not seeing any strategic approach to how we're going to deal with this”, he says.

The former finance minister says the government is not taking measures either against increasing inflation in the country.

He has reiterated the LDK's proposal for the provisional removal of the excise, in what, according to him, would make the oil price about 1.25 euros per litre.

The government's “Management of the inflation situation has been catastrophic, no measures have been undertaken, except that the assistance that has been highly symbolic of 100 euros for certain groups of the population, no other measure has been taken, measures that are anti-terroral, such as restricting the price of oil... It is very incomprehensible when the government's banking balance is nearly 600m euros, about 600m euros remaining in the government bank account. In the optimum situation, there would have to be about 370m euros in the government's banking balance, no more, keeping all these tools in the government bank account means reducing citizens' purchasing power”, Hoti said.

The former Kosovo prime minister also spoke of the agreement with the MCC signed days ago in Washington. According to him, this agreement is already reduced.

Very useful, of course, this shows the partnership between the two countries but delayed anyway and this agreement was ready to be signed two years ago... Among the major conditions has been the corruption struggle and we qualified there and then the feasibility studies have been completed in 2020, and in September 2020 I have sent letters of real answer to the MCC on their request to determine for projects proposed by the study of the MCC feasibility. The MCC has been involved in gas power plant, gas network, improvements in the distribution network to reduce losses in networks and batteries, even several energy efficiency projects. The deal we're already seeing is that it's only been reduced to energy accumulate and the batteries in energy accumulate that actually help maintain energy balance when it's down from the system, the thermal power plants, or when it's high energy production beyond consumption and it can be maintained, but it doesn't solve the supply problem, that is, the growth of energy capacities”, he said.

Days ago at the US Congress, the agreement between the Republic of Kosovo and the United States of America, represented by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), worth $226.7m.