Brussels, 12 June 2013
A delegation of the Republic of Kosovo led by Deputy Prime Minister Edita Tahiri, the head of dialogue on implementing the agreement on normalization, is in Brussels to take part in the next round of talks on Implementation of the agreement on normalization inter-state relations between the Republic of Kosovo and of Serbia, with the mediation of the European Union. In this context, yesterday technical talks were held about telecoms and energy, in an effort to reach agreement in these two fields.
After the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Edita Tahiri stated that, “the meeting lasted all day yesterday in a bilateral format between the Kosovo delegation and the EU, and occasionally, in a trilateral format, including the Serb party; however we did not reach agreement, but just further aligned our positions on telecoms and energy.”
As we informed you before, it was anticipated in this round that the European Union mediator would offer additional proposals to resolve the differences between us, but this did not happen as the EU mediator decided one more time, to allow the parties to attempt to reach a bilateral agreement, said Ms. Tahiri.
With regard to telecoms, during the talks, once more Serbia reconfirmed that it would not obstruct Kosovo receiving a country telecoms code and that Kosovo could apply for a telephone code to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and that the European Union would assist this process, and it is expected that one of the possible codes 383 or 384 will be allocated for Kosovo’s use. In addition, the willingness to cooperate was affirmed between both states on issues regarding roaming and interconnection, the ITU’s allocation to Kosovo of a frequency band, and for interstate and regional cooperation about the international digitalization agenda. There were disagreements about Serbia’s request to license a mobile telephone operator in Kosova as such a request is not in accordance with the laws of Kosovo or an international tender process, based on European competition principles. We have offered a solution within our legal possibilities, by licensing a virtual operator which will act as a sub-contractor of one of the existing mobile operators in Kosovo.
With regard to the issue of energy, there was no further progress in comparison with the last round, but it is worth mentioning that an important outcome is the pledge of the Serb party to establish inter-state cooperation, between the authorities of the Kosovo transmission KOSTT and the counterpart authority in Serbia, and not to obstruct the path of this institution becoming part of European institutions. The main disagreements related to the request of the Serb party to license an energy supplier in Kosovo, which was rejected by the Kosovo party, because according to Kosovo’s laws there can be only one legal public supplier and that is KEDS (previously KEK). In addition, we emphasized that after 2015, when the liberalization of the energy market in South Eastern Europe is anticipated, and then new possibilities will be created to this end.
The process of talks yesterday was burdened with obstructions of a political nature since the Serb party was working toward an ethnic solution, which is not in alignment with the laws of the Republic of Kosovo and European principles and so the Kosovo party did not agree and rejected it decisively.
In the Kosovo delegation, led by Deputy Prime Minister Edita Tahiri, the following participated: the group of energy experts: Naim Bejtullahu, Director General KOSTT; Enver Halimi, President of the Board of the Office of the Energy Regulator; Merita Kostari, member of the Board of the Energy Regulator; Arben Gjukaj, Director of KEK; Elona Cecelia, Political Advisor of the DPM Tahiri; Visar Xani, Political Advisor of DPM Tahiri, whereas the group of experts for the telecoms field was comprised of: Ekrem Hoxha, President of the Board of the Regulatory Authority of Electronic and Post Communications; Besnik Berisha, board member of the Regulatory Authority of Electronic and Post Communications and Gazmir Raci, Political Advisor of DPM Tahiri.
Last modified: July 31, 2022