After meeting with Vucinqi, Serbian List again threatens with exits from Kosovo institutions

“First we politicians, and then all in a row, both prosecutors and judges, and police”, said Goran Rakiq, chairman of the Serbian List, during a speech for specific Serb media in northern Kosovo.

The “in this way will have a total breakup of Brussels' ” dialogue, he added.

The Serbian list reiterated that it has given full support to Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, to find a compromise solution in the next 10 days, but with assurance that the Serbian people's “oversumption and pegromy” will not be allowed.

Official Belgrade rejects Kosovo's recent decision to issue documents for entry/letting those who possess Serbian documents after entering Kosovo. They specifically oppose the fact that such a thing applies to Serbs in northern Kosovo, where there are four Serb-run municipalities.

Serbia has issued such a document to Kosovo citizens since they agreed to Brussels between the two sides in 2011.

In addition to that document, Kosovo authorities have also decided that all vehicles with license plates issued by Serbia for the cities of Kosovo will be reregistered in those of the Republic of Kosovo RKS. Cars with license plates such as KM, PR and similar so far have moved only to the north.

Due to such decisions, Serbs in the north set up barricades in this part before the start of their implementation on August 1st, to remove them after the Kosovo government postponed implementation for a month.

At last week's meeting between Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti in Brussels, no agreement was reached on the issue. Serbia demanded that issuing Kosovo's document not applied to citizens in northern Kosovo and that vehicles be reregistered with status-neutral plates, KS, instead of RKS.

Vuciq said at Sunday's conference that Kosovo rejected this, but added that in the next 10 days it will seek a compromise solution.

Serbian List's” chronology of Kosovo institutions

But, threatening the Serbian List for leaving Kosovo institutions is not new.

In March of this year, Serbia's president, Vuciq, said that, once again, there is “preventing” the exit of representatives of Kosovo Serbs from Kosovo institutions. This time around, the reason for their “preparedness” to abandon these institutions is, as they have said, the “terror that is going through” and because official Pristina is not allowing the vote in the 3 April Serbian parliamentary and presidential elections.

On March 22nd, Vuciq met in Belgrade with representatives of Kosovo Serbs who “not only unanimously urged him to leave the institutions immediately, but also 435 police officers in the country's north, to leave their weapons and leave regional police”.

However, Vuciq said he urged them to “patience, tolerance and to count to ten”.

The closure by Kosovo institutions Rakiq had warned another day before the local elections in Kosovo, which were held on 17 October last year.

At the media conference, Rakiq had said northern Kosovo Serbs would leave the institutions of all levels, if talks on forming the Serb majority municipalities begin within a month.

So, there will be no people in the Pristina institutions” in the north, Rakiq was expressed.
The association would have to unite the ten Serb-run majority municipalities in Kosovo, as a result of the Brussels agreement under the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue.

This agreement was reached in 2013 and the principles for it were adopted in 2015, but it has never been implemented on the ground, because Kosovo believes it will jeopardise the country's functionality.

In 2015, the Constitutional Court of Kosovo has determined that some of the principles of the Association Agreement are not in harmony with the Constitution of Kosovo, but that they can be harmonised with the statute.

Due to the Association of Serb majority municipalities, Serbian political representatives warned them of their departure from Kosovo institutions in October 2020, when Serbia's Government Office for Kosovo director Petar Petkovovic said Serbia would consider such a procedure.

Following Petkov's statement, Goran Rakic also stated that the Serb political representatives in Kosovo would consider the possibility of leaving institutions. Rakiq was then deputy prime minister in the government headed by Avdullah Hoti.

In December 2019, Serbian List Chairman Goran Rakiq had declared he would leave Kosovo institutions if deputy Ivan Todosijevic is given a final decision because of his denial of crime in Recak.

Todosijevic, the former Kosovo Assembly President, was sentenced to two years in prison for inciting <x0).

Todosijevic is currently chairman of the interim body Zvecan, which is funded by Belgrade and that authorities in Pristina consider a parallel and illegal institution.

At the end of May 2019, there were also warnings of withdrawal of Serbs from Kosovo institutions. The then director of the Government of Serbia's Office for Kosovo, Marko Djurovic, said that at the Kosovo Serbs' meeting and the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vuciq, conclusions have been reached, one of which concerns leaving Kosovo institutions.

Earlier, in February 2019, Serbia's president, Vuciq, said Kosovo Serbs asked him to withdraw from Kosovo institutions, but he was “required to wait 45 days”.

At the end of March 2018, Serbs from Kosovo announced from Belgrade that they will leave Kosovo institutions and that they will form the Association of Serb-run municipalities themselves. This was also the first time Kosovo Serbs threatened to leave the institutions, and this was done after the arrest of former director of the Office for Kosovo of the Government of Serbia, Marko Djurovic.

Despite all these warnings, there has never been an exit from Kosovo institutions, but mayors from the Serbian List have resigned in November 2018, due to the Kosovo Government's deployment of the 100 per cent tax on goods from Serbia. / REL