Serbia and Kosovo should soon discuss the further paying back of a portion of the public external debt of the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, according to the magazine Business and Finance.
The deadline for paying the debt is 2041, and amounts to 347.1 million dollars.
Serbia’s Public Debt Administration recently launched an initiative to open negotiations with Pristina authorities on this subject. Serbia is still paying off Kosovo’s foreign debt, which dates back from the last century, although Serbia did not collect any fiscal revenues from Kosovo for years. According to data obtained by Business and Finance, it would take Serbia another 26 years to pay off Kosovo’s debt.
With interest, Serbia could pay a billion euros if the payoff continues throughout the period. The topic of public debt has so far not been on the agenda of the Pristina-Belgrade negotiations in Brussels.
Serbia’s initiative for resolving the issue does not define precise terms, or any specific amount of money that Kosovo should reimburse Serbia.
According to the National Bank of Serbia, part of Serbia’s public external debt relating to Kosovo and Metohija includes obligations arising from agreements concluded between the 1970s and 1990s with the World Bank, Paris Club, London Club of Creditors, Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), European Investment Bank (EIB), European Association of Railways (Eurofima), and Government of Kuwait, as well as other obligations to Libya and the former Czechoslovakia.
From 2002 to 31 October 2014, Serbia repaid a portion of the public external debt related to Kosovo and Metohija, in the amount of 543.50 million euros.
Serbia’s Public Debt Administration emphasizes that Serbia continues to regularly meet all obligations related to the public debt of Kosovo and Metohija, except with the World Bank, which Serbia ceased to pay in 2009.
