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Serbia Must Implement Energy Deal, Kosovo Negotiator Says

July 27, 201807:40
While Kosovo’s President calls for a consensus on the political dialogue with Serbia, the technical delegation's chief has again insisted that Serbia must implement all outstanding agreements if it wants to continue talks.
Photo: BIRN

As the debate in Kosovo continues on the political dialogue between two countries, the head of Kosovo’s technical delegation, Avni Arifi, has repeated that Kosovo will not take further part in the EU-led dialogue until Serbia implements agreed deals on issues like energy.

An agreement on energy was reached between Serbia and Kosovo in 2015 but has still not been implemented.

The Transmission System and Market Operator Electricity of Kosovo, KOSTT, says the failure to implement this agreement has caused it huge financial losses.

During a meeting between KOSTT representatives and members of the Kosovo parliament, organised by the Kosovo Democratic Institute in March, it said that during 2017 alone, KOSTT suffered losses of millions of euros.

“From 2008 to 2017, Serbia is estimated to have benefited by up to 52 million euros from using Kosovo’s interconnection lines,” KOSTT representatives reportedly said in the meeting.

In an email sent to the European External Actions Service on May 25, which BIRN has obtained, Arifi said Pristina would not take any further part in normalisation talks until Serbia implements six pending agreements in full – including the one on energy.

“Yes, I am still insisting on this,” Arifi told BIRN on Thursday.

Kosovo institutions say the agreement on energy is not being implemented because Serbia refuses to register a new energy company in Kosovo, Elektro Server, under Kosovo’s laws.

The agreement on energy obliges Kosovo to allow Serbia’s public energy company to establish a supply company within Kosovo.

It also says this company should be licensed within eight days of its application to operate, but this has not happened.

Former Kosovo Minister of Dialogue Edita Tahiri confirmed to BIRN on 2017 that Serbia had applied several times to Kosovo’s Business Registration Agency to certify the energy company – but was still not registered.

Tahiri said this was because the statute of the company needed to make it clear that it would be operating in Kosovo.

The Serbian side had rejected this demand, as providing indirect recognition by Serbia of Kosovo’s independence as a state, which it disputes.

“They have applied three or four times so far … but are violating the agreement which says the company should respect Kosovo’s laws. When it has submitted an application, the company … has failed to write in its statute that it is operating in Kosovo,” Tahiri said.

The energy dispute between Kosovo and Serbia has also affected the Europe’s digital clocks.

In March this year, ENTSOE, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity, said the Continental European Power System had experienced “a continuous system frequency deviation from its mean value of 50 Hz” since mid-January 2018 – originating from Serbia and Kosovo.

ENTSOE said the power deviation was affecting digital clocks, by showing delays in time of up to six minutes. 

Since the Kosovo war ended in 1999, Kosovo’s four northern Serb-majority municipalities have not paid Pristina for their energy consumption.

To make up for the shortfall, people from other areas of Kosovo had a percentage added to their bills to pay for the north’s electricity.

In December, the Kosovo Energy Regulator’s Office announced that electricity bills would fall by 3.5 per cent, as consumers would no longer cover the cost of the four municipalities’ power.

In March, the government allocated one million euros to cover the expenses in the north.

Read more:

Serbia and Kosovo Reach Four Key Agreements

Serbia-Kosovo Relations