Kurti shares vision on how the Association of Serb Municipalities should look like

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Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, shared his version on what the Association of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo should look like.

After the May 2nd meeting in Brussel, where he refused the first ever draft statute on the creation of the Association, Kurti announced that the Management Team that compiled it, has been decommissioned.

“I fundamentally disagree with the draft. It represents the desire for a Republika Srpska in Kosova,” Kurti wrote on Twitter, sharing the document he showed to the Serbian President and the EU officials on his vision of the Association.

In the document he presented in Brussel, Kurti declares that the implementation of Article 7 of the Basic Agreement must be compliant with the Constitution of the Republic of Kosova. To meet this ambition, Kurti says, a draft statute should be able to inter alia meet following cumulative criteria, respectively embrace these elements:

  • It will originate in the authorizations of the Council of Europe conventions, namely the Framework Convention;
  • It will offer the possibility to the members of the Serbian community in Kosova to promote and protect their interests through a self-management framework;
  • It will engender a non-territorial project, wherein all Serbs in Kosova are functionally represented in accordance with the principle of equality before the law and non-discrimination, and, on the basis of which, all Serbs in Kosova realize their right to free association in order to protect or advocate for political, national, cultural, social, economic and other rights and goals;
  • It will provide for a direct channel of communication with the Government of the Republic of Kosova, amongst others, through participation in the Consultative Council of Communities;
  • It will offer the possibility to be funded by the Government of the Republic of Kosova budget, international organizations, third-country institutions and donations, including from Serbia, which should all be routed through Kosova’s Ministry of Finance procedures and regulations;
  • It will envisage the possibility to cooperate with all institutions, including municipalities, for purposes of supporting their work and mission for its members;
  • It will fully recognize the constitutional characteristics of the Republic of Kosova such as respect for the independence, unity of the institutional system, territorial integrity of the Republic, and contribute to its full realization in practice;
  • It will make use of the present laws in offering the possibility to exercise certain not-for-profit services through establishing associations in the field of culture, art, science and education as well as scholarly and other associations for the expression, fostering and development of Serbs identity;
  • It will envisage the procedure for registration with Kosova’s Government body responsible for general administration and procedures for compliance with Kosova’s law in force;
  • It will ensure and promote respect for political pluralism, freedom of speech, freedom of association and the right to freely protect the political and religious identity of the Serbs in Kosova.

Lastly, Kurti says that this project should embody the shared determination of Kosovo and Serbia to stay genuine and committed to ensuring that their non-majority communities live up to the same standards of human rights protection, that leave no one behind.

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