Kosovo has began a 61-day countdown to a possible new flashpoint with Serbia amid EU appeals for calm.
Kosovo prime minister Albin Kurti issued the deadline — 31 October — for some 50,000 ethnic Serbs in Kosovo to change their quantity plates from Serbian ones to Kosovar ones in a politically-charged assertion on Thursday (1 September).
“The plates issued by Serbia … are the legacy of the Milošević regime,” he stated in Serbian on Fb, referring to Serbia’s late wartime chief Slobodan Milošević.
“Such a legacy shouldn’t be a burden in your again. On this method, it purposefully retains you remoted even previously,” he added.
He additionally provided tax breaks of as much as €5,000 for individuals who went forward.
However he made clear that the transfer was “nothing roughly than an expression of the train of [Kosovar] sovereignty” — which Serbs don’t recognise.
The final time Kurti tried to implement the identical thought, initially of August, it led to violent protests by ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo, accompanied by a present of army pressure by Serbian warplanes.
KFOR — the Nato mission preserving the peace in Kosovo for the previous 20 years — advised Reuters on Wednesday it did not see any imminent hazard.
“We do not see any form of indication even of a preparation for a battle … Those that assume responsibly, they need to not discuss battle,” main basic Ferenc Kajari, the KFOR commander, stated.
However the EU Fee urged Kosovo to take issues extra slowly in order to not trigger contemporary unrest.
“It will be important that ample time is given for the implementation of this plan, and that it’s ready and executed in shut session with the affected residents, and in step with good European practices,” a Fee spokesperson advised Reuters.
“The liberty of motion conclusions from 2016 [a previous EU communication on the subject] included for much longer timelines for re-registration, which ought to present steering for the method at hand now,” the spokesperson stated.
Kosovo and Serbia ought to “use the EU-facilitated dialogue because the platform to handle and resolve all open points between them … together with associated to license plates,” the spokesperson added on Kurti’s unilateral transfer, referring to EU-brokered talks on normalising relations.
The talks have gone on since 2011 at numerous ranges of presidency and, final week, led to a deal between Belgrade and Pristina on using ID playing cards by Kosovar Serbs.
However the dialogue has executed little to ship a deal on Serb recognition of Kosovo, whereas stoking fears in Pristina that the West can be completely satisfied to have a quasi-autonomous Serb entity inside Kosovo just like Republika Srpska in Bosnia.
The number-plate dispute additionally comes amid rising EU concern that Russia would possibly fire up instability within the Western Balkans to distract Europe from its battle in opposition to Ukraine.
The Russian overseas ministry tried to pour kerosene on the flames in August by claiming the number-plate row was designed to see ethnic Serbs forcibly cleared out of Kosovo.
The EU additionally virtually doubled the variety of troopers in its Eufor peacekeeping mission in Bosnia within the wake of the Ukraine battle and amid threats by Republic Srpska’s pro-Russian president Milorad Dodik to secede from the federation.
“Regional tensions are being fuelled by overseas interference,” EU overseas relations chief Josep Borrell stated in Prague on Wednesday, referring to Moscow.
“The EU wants to accentuate its shut relations with the nations of the Western Balkans and attempt for swift progress within the technique of EU accession,” France and Germany stated in a casual paper circulated to fellow EU states this week.
