The Government of Kosovo announced on Monday that it has decided to extend the deadline for the re-registration of vehicles with Serbian plates “PR”, “KM”, “PZ”, “GL”, “UR”, “PE”, “DA” or “ĐA” to RKS license plates until December 1.

According to a statement from the Kosovo Government, the new decision also stipulates that after December 1, 2023, “owners of vehicles with plates “PR”, “KM”, “PZ”, “GL”, “UR”, “PE”, “DA” or “ĐA” from June 10, 1999 until April 21, 2022, will no longer have the option to register these vehicles with Kosovo plates, enter, or circulate in and through the territory of the Republic of Kosovo”.

On October 17, the Deputy Director of the Kosovo Police for the northern region, Veton Elshani, stated to Radio Free Europe that hundreds of citizens had requested an extension of the deadline for re-registering vehicles with Serbian plates.

On Monday, the Government announced that it had decided to extend the deadline in response to numerous requests it had received.

With the efforts of the European Union and the United States, on November 23, 2022, Pristina and Belgrade once again reached an agreement as part of the dialogue. This agreement stipulates that Serbia should cease issuing new plates with the names of Kosovo cities, while Kosovo should proceed with the re-registration process.

However, both parties later interpreted this agreement differently.

On December 6, 2022, the Serbian Government approved a decree under which vehicles with “KM” plates are allowed to move without registration tags, and they are required to show officials only a security sticker and a technical control certificate.

Official Pristina interpreted this move by Belgrade as a re-registration, arguing that it contradicts the Brussels agreement.

Kosovo does not recognize such a re-registration, which in practice would mean that those who registered their vehicles with “KM” plates in the Serbian system after last November would not be allowed to move within Kosovo’s territory.

The issue of Serbian plates issued for Kosovo cities has caused a series of crises in the past two years, as well as the withdrawal of Serbs from Kosovo’s institutions in the north in November 2022.

Kosovo’s Government’s deadline for the re-registration of Serbian plates in Kosovo expired in April of this year, but there are still a significant number of vehicles with “KM” plates in the field.

According to some estimates, as of last October, there were around 10,000 vehicles with “KM” plates in the northern municipalities of Kosovo.

The “KM” abbreviation stands for the city of Mitrovica in north Kosovo.