EULEX chief: The situation in the north could easily escalate

The chief of the European Union's mission for rule of law in Kosovo expressed concern over the fragile situation in the country's north.

The situation remains tense in the north even after Western powers helped resolve a tense situation in December 2022, when Serbs set up barricades on main roads to protest the arrest of a former Serbian police officer.

I think this was the most serious crisis Kosovo is facing, in particular northern Kosovo, for the last decade, for the last ten years. There was a very tense impasse, with barricades”, the AP told Lars-Gunnar Wigemark, the head of EULEX, Klankosova.tv.

He said the situation remains unstable and warned that the crisis could easily escalate.

About 130 EU law-rule police officers, known as EULEX, and about 160 Albanian police officers are monitoring the security of the area, including the conduct of the patrols on foot, after all ethnic Serb representatives resigned from their posts in November.

But I think it's important not to lower alert, say, and believe that this crisis is not over. It can easily escalate again. We all know that, so we're looking very carefully at the situation on the ground”.

“has a big remaining challenge. There is still a security vacuum in northern Kosovo after, as you said, the withdrawal of almost all Kosovo Serb policemen in early November”.

Wigemark said that the mission he runs increased presence. “We verified our presence, including our exit from our vehicles and the implementation of so-called patrols on foot, the discovery, so that the local population can see that we were there, to be as visible and to try to build confidence in a situation where there was a lack of trust on all sides, where the local population does not trust the Albanian part of the Kosovo Police”, he said in this interview.

He said both sides should be encouraged, both Belgrade and Pristina, to truly do their best to resolve the situation.

“and I think that both for Kosovo and Serbia, it is essential to move forward in terms of EU integration, which is more necessary than ever now when we see what is happening in other parts of Europe, we see what instability and disagreements can bring, what kind of terrible conflict may erupt. And we all hope, of course, that the timing of such conflict will be part of the past here in this part of Europe”, the potential Wigemark.

Meanwhile, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti called on Western powers not to pressure his small Balkan country to accept a controversial association of Serb majority municipalities that is increasing tensions between Kosovo and Serbia.

Kurti said in interview for AP on Sunday that the Serbian government must recognise the independence of all former republics of the former Yugoslavia so that “faces the past”.

He stressed that Belgrade should lean more towards the European Union and NATO, not Russia.