26 Aug 14
Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister has predicted that joint border controls with Serbia, in line with the agreement on Integrated Border Management, will soon be up and running.
Pristina
Edita Tahiri, Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Kosovo delegation in the EU-led Belgrade-Pristina talks, said the construction of permanent border crossings between Serbia and Kosovo is now in the phase “of drafting the blueprints for the facilities.
“On September 4, we will be meeting in Brussels when the European Union is due to present ideas related to these plans. I believe that in the coming period we will make progress until the blueprints are ready,” she told Balkan Insight.
“When we have a three party accord [between Serbia, Kosovo, and EU], the European Union will continue with the construction, as they have pledged to finance the construction of the facilities,” Tahiri added.
The construction of joint border crossings is the result of an agreement reached in Brussels between Kosovo and Serbia on December 2011. The agreement provides for jointly managed border crossings between the two countries.
In January, Kosovo submitted a report to the EU on the progress made in implementation of the agreement, complaining that the process of implementation had not been smooth since 2011.
Among other points, it noted that the facilities at Jarinje and Bernjak had been damaged and that shots were fired against local and international KFOR personnel on 27 July 2011, followed by attacks on German KFOR troops in Serb-run northern Kosovo.
However, Deputy Prime Minister Tahiri said she was optimistic that there would not be any problems during the upcoming meetings in Brussels.
“The constructions of the buildings will completely round up implementation of the IBM agreement, which practically establishes the inter-state border between Kosovo and Serbia,” she said.
The EU Office in Kosovo has confirmed that the construction of six joint border crossings will be the topic of the next dialogue session on 4 September.
“Construction details, including the date of the start of the construction works remain to be defined,” Fatmire Terdevci from the Information Office of the EU in Kosovo, said.
Over the past weeks, many Kosovo citizens who wished to cross into Serbia were forced to wait for hours. However, Tahiri put this down to a huge rush of people going on summer holidays, and, as she put it, “this is happens in the whole region during certain periods”.
The border between Kosovo and Serbia remains a sensitive issue, largely owing to the fact that Serbia does not recognise the independence of its former province, proclaimed in 2008.
An additional complicating factor is that since 2008 affairs in the north of Kosovo have been under the de-facto control of local Serbs, reluctant to admit the existence of a separate Kosovo state.
