Kosovo Serbs claim that Serbia must retain jurisdiction at least in the areas of education and health, and should not allow that Serbs become only citizens of self-declared Kosovo.
Representatives of the part of Serb population fear that official Belgrade is not ready for negotiations over the final status of the Serbian province and that they neither have national nor state strategy.
One of co-founder of the Serbian National Forum Momcilo Trajkovic says that Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic has announced a state strategy but that it will be based on insuficient knowledge of situation in Kosovo and Meothija. According to him Association/Community of Serb municipalities (A/CSM) should be the basis of the state and national strategy of Serbia.
Aleksandar Jablanovic, the head of the Serbian List, claims that all moves made by the officials from that list are harmonized with Belgrade and the Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic. “If A/CSM doesn’t receive executive jurisdiction, Srpska will reconsider further participation in Kosovo institutions,” said Jablanovic.
However, Edita Tahiri, Minister without portfolio in the Kosovo government, said that A/CSO will be only an ordinary non-governmental organization without any executive power. She also announced that prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo, Aleksandar Vucic and Isa Mustafa, will sign a document on abolition of the Serbian institutions in Kosovo and constitution of unconditional authority of Kosovo institutions throughout the Kosovo territory, including the north of Kosovo. In the same time representatives of Kosovo Serbs pointed out that merging of jurisdiction of the president of the provisional body in Štrpce/Shtërpcë municipality (Serbia-run administration) with the jurisdiction of the Kosovo municipality, has confirmed Tahiri’s claims that Serbs will be ‘melted’ into Kosovo institutions. There are also announcements that funds allocated from budgets of Serbia and Kosovo to returnees will also merge. The head of the Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Marko Djuric, said that the budget policy on returns will be harmonized with the one of Pristina.
Some Kosovo Serbs claim that Djuric actually referred to the Ahtisaari’s plan, the document which was rejected by the Serbian government and which stipulates that control over the distribution of funds will be in hands of the Central Bank of Kosovo – not the A/CSO, exactly the way Tahiri explained.
