A “mixerious” manager will present the Association statute, Government does not tell the names

The warning was given by the two countries' top negotiators, Besnik Bislimi and Petar Petkov, following their meeting in Brussels on April 4th.

Yet, exactly who makes up the Management Team is not yet known, so who wrote the statute for forming Association.

REL has managed to receive concrete names from the Kosovo government of people who make up this team.

Bislimi told Kosovo media on 5 April that the Management Team consists of four members of the Serb community.

“Danijela Vujicic is in charge. Two people from the team are the same, while two members have consistently changed”, he said.

REL has asked the Government of Kosovo whether members have changed, but has not received answers.

Danijela Vujicic is deputy of Serbia's Parliament by the Serbian Progressive Party, which has power. It comes from North Mitrovica ʹ one of the four Serb majority municipalities in northern Kosovo.

The management team's “mandate ends at the moment when it introduces the draft [of the statute for forming the Association of Serb majority municipalities]”, Bislimi said.

In 2018, the Management Team drafted a statute and handed it over to Brussels. But that statute was never discussed, with public knowledge.

REL also addressed the so-called Office for Kosovo in Serbia's Government with questions about who currently makes up the Management Team, whether the draft state of 2018 or a young man has been prepared, but until the publication of this article, he received no answers.

There is uncertainty about the draft status presentation, Bislim confirmed on April 4th in Brussels.

What is known about the Management Team?

After Kosovo and Serbia reached an agreement in 2013 on the Association of Serb majority municipalities, and two years later agreed on the principles of its formation, the Ministry of Local Self Government Management of the Government of Kosovo appointed the Management Team in 2016.

At the time, Lubomir Mariq, of the ranks of the largest Kosovo Serb party to have Belgrade's support, headed the ministry. Today, he is deputy of the Serbian Parliament by the Serbian Progressive Party.

Maric, who was the co-ordinator of the Management Team, appointed four people to write the Constitution of Association of Serb-run municipalities: Igor Kalammar, Dejan Radojkovic, Vinko Radosavlevljevic and Svetislav Durlevic.

Kalammar and Radojkovic are from North Mitrovica, while Radosavlevlik and Durllevic are from municipalities south of the Iber River.

Currently, it is unknown whether the Management Team has drafted a new statute.

In late January, German nongovernmental organisation Friedrich ch-Ebert-Stiftung prepared and introduced its draft status for the formation of the Serb majority municipalities' association.

As it was said at the time, the statute was drafted with the initiative of the organisation itself and after many years of disagreement between Kosovo and Serbia on the issue.

This document has seven chapters and 18 articles that define the organisational structure of Association, relations with central authorities, legal regulations, budget, and so on.

As purposes of forming association are cited: strengthening local democracy, developing the local economy, monitoring in the field of education, primary health and secondary health, and so on.

For this German organisation's move, the director of the so-called Office for Kosovo in Serbia's Government, Petar Petkoviq, who said that “nobody from the Management Team has asked the organisation Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung” for services.

That job is exclusively entrusted to the Manager Team. In line with the mandate entrusted, the Managing Team completed drafting the draft state nearly five years ago, exactly in August 2018, and formally announced the EU to this”, Petkov said.

What do Brussels agreements foresee?

The first agreement on normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia in 2013 says only that the Association of Serb majority municipalities will be established on the basis of the statute, but, later, the implementation plan determined that the parties should form a management team, which will write the statute.

The “Ekipi Manager will consist of representatives of four municipalities from the north, and will be founded after confirmation by the competent Kosovo body. The implementation commission will oversee the work of the Managing Team”, said among other things in the implementation plan.

Later, in the context of the dialogue, it was agreed on “when the action and mandate of the Management Team” for the establishment of the Association, which should consist of representatives of each of the four Serb majority municipalities in northern Kosovo.

The same document confirms that the Management Team is responsible for drafting the Association Act of Serb Majority municipalities, which will determine its organisational structure, purposes, decision-making processes and competencies.

In the 2015 Agreement, which set out the principles for forming the Association, it is not specifically mentioned in the Management Team, but it is said that the statute will be adopted by a mechanism that will consist of elected members of the member municipalities.

The association of Serb majority municipalities should consist of ten Serb majority municipalities in Kosovo: Gracanica, Shrpca, Klokoti, Ranillug, Partesh, Novoberda south of Ibër and North Mitrovica, Zvecani, Leposaviqi and Zubin Potoku in the north.

As purposes of forming the Association are cited: full supervision of local economy development, full supervision in the field of education, health and social protection, full co-ordination of urban and rural planning, and others.