The legal basis for the Community of Serbian municipalities (ZSO) in Kosovo will be established in the autumn, given that all the steps that lead to it will be carried out without a lot of political maneuvers. At first a new government in Pristina should be formed, so that its representatives, on a new round of dialogue in Brussels, could verify ZSO Statute. Then, the ZSO must be legally “covered” in the Kosovo parliament.
The whole calendar could easily be postponed by Brussels which is yet to select a successor of the High Representative, Catherine Ashton. That’s why it is uncertain which priority will have the continuation of the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina.
Draft Statute of the ZSO was made, confirmed to our newspaper Dragan Jablanović, a member of the ZSO management team. On the basis of the Statute, ZSO must have in its composition at least six municipalities, but also the powers and obligations to which the Kosovo authorities have committed in the Brussels. Jablanović recalls that the statute of ZSO was made on the basis of acts of regions that exist within the EU and in the world, such as South Tyrol or Bavaria: “The ZSO will be formed in accordance with Kosovo law, but according to the European standards.”
According to Jablanovic, although the Kosovo authorities in Brussels agreed to accept ZSO within their legal framework as an institution, and not as an association, as originally insisted, they refused to finance it. This means that ZSO will be funded by Serbia.
