Despite objections from June 1st to open energy market, legal actions are warned

Economic Ode leader Lulzim Rafuna said during the protest that businesses are being forced into free market and that they will face a new electricity price, “220 to 270 per cent higher”.

The prime minister in office, Albin Kurti, at the Government's meeting, has attacked the Kosovo Chamber of Economics and Business, saying that “is trying to block the magistrateal routes”, asking, as he said, to carry the electricity cost of 1200 “companies, citizens' bills”.

He said that the “time of the barricades is over, and that they will not be established in”.

“to protect 1% of the most powerful companies, at the expense of 99 per cent and households on the sides of Kosovo, they want to make barricades at Pristina entrances. But the timing of barricades in Kosovo has passed. We removed them wherever they were and pledged that we would never allow any new ones to be settled. We call on all odas and businesses to start thinking smart ways about efficiency and optimising energy exploitation”, he said.

Kurti's statement on the barricades issue prompted numerous reactions. It was said that this way the prime minister in office compared Kosovo's businesses to criminal gangs blocking roads in the north.

The PDK even warned that on Friday it will launch legal battle in connection with the case.

Meanwhile, ZRE Director Ymer Feyzullahu has said that despite all these objections, the decision will take effect on June 1st and businesses will be forced into open energy market.

The ZRGE's “Bord has considered these issues and the decision is still in effect”, he said.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening it was announced that the Kosovo Energy Corporation has signed an agreement with KOSTT on electricity supply, within the process of liberalising the energy market in Kosovo.

This agreement reportedly has particular importance “due to the strategic role it plays in the transition of the energy market towards the open and competitive model”, writes Reporter.net.

The Energy Regulatory Office decision (ZRRE) for energy market liberalisation will take effect on 1 June. The decision implies that all major businesses will no longer be supplied with energy through regulated tariffs, but must find their own supplier on the free market. If they fail to do so, they automatically go to the open market at unregulated prices. /Periscope/