Prishtina, 28 December, 2022
The address of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, at the press conference:
Dear citizens of Kosovo,
Kosovo is the country of all of us, regardless of national or religious, racial or social affiliation.
The rule of law, the freedom of citizens and the rights of minority communities are the European values that we defend. Kosovo is a laic state where human and civil rights include freedom of religion. We stand for a clear separation between religion and state, between religious institutions and democratic institutions.
This year’s economic growth in Kosovo is 4 percent of the gross domestic product. This brings optimism for the economy and at the same time well-being for all citizens, because with the help of social measures we will distribute this growth to all of you and above all to those layers of society that are in difficulty.
We want peace, economic and social progress. Next year we will distribute a fund of several million euros to all companies that will employ a multi-ethnic and multicultural workforce. We do not want to fill the void that exists within our common institutions after the collective and mostly forced resignation of several hundred Kosovo Serb citizens with Albanians. Therefore, I invite all Serbs from Kosovo to apply for these jobs, especially Serbs who have had no chance so far.
There is political and democratic pluralism in Kosovo. Official Belgrade does not allow the same for the Serbian community in Kosovo. We remember that until the beginning of November, when Goran Rakić was the minister, Belgrade did not protest. After the appointment of Nenad Rasić and Rada Trajković, the streets were barricaded by those who during the fall burned six cars of disobedient Serbs. Autocracy, fear and blackmail go together. Democracy, equality and freedom stand against them.
Dear citizens of Kosovo,
I do not hate any citizen of our country, but at the same time, I do not agree with Belgrade, which tries to invent a time machine and thus turn back the region three decades, to the beginning of the career of some of the political leaders of present day Serbia. Barricades that rule the mind become barricades on the road. In this case, we are not talking about the civilian barricades from the student protests in Paris in 1968, but those wartime barricades in the early 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.
I believe that all Serbs have enough power, at this historical and geopolitical crossroads, to distance themselves from Milosevic’s past and Putin’s present, and in this way help the entire region to become a member of the European Union. The future of all of us is the European Union and there is no smart alternative to that. Europe is our continent and the European Union is our goal and destiny. This would be possible in less than a decade under the condition of mutual recognition of Kosovo and Serbia.
There is only one peaceful and democratic solution for the relations between Kosovo and Serbia, it is mutual recognition and mutual relations.
Dear citizens of Kosovo,
In no case will I identify the barricades with the Serbian population. This cannot and would not be true, but it would be harmful to all of us. It would only serve those who want tension and open conflict. We don’t want it. For this reason, we postponed the elections in four northern municipalities to April next year, while the fines for illegal license plates to the spring of next year, to give a chance to the agreement on the normalization of relations. As a general framework for the agreement, we received a proposal from the European Union supported by France, Germany and the USA. This is the path of peace that we must follow, and barricades are barricades to peace.
Dear citizens of Kosovo,
Keep the peace, yours and the social one. Happy New Year.
Thank you.
Last modified: December 29, 2022