The EULEX mission did not come to Kosovo to magically solve every problem, mission chief Alexandra Papadopulou told the Beta news agency on Wednesday.
“The EULEX mission was not deployed here to solve all of Kosovo’s problems in rule of law with a magic wand in just a couple of years. We should have made that clearer from the start, we should have managed local expectations better,” she said.
Papadopuolou said the role of the mission was to implement a multi-ethnic, transparent and independent rule of law system free from political interference.
The current EULEX mandate expires on June 14 and the mission would lose some of its powers and withdraw its judges and prosecutors from the Kosovo judiciary system. She said the new mandate is being prepared but the exact number of mission personnel would be decided by European Union member states.
“A part of our activities would be transferred to the EU office, another part to the Kosovo judiciary and EULEX would continue providing support,” the mission chief said.
Papadopuolou said the EU rule of law mission would continue monitoring the situation in the judiciary and police. “Monitoring, teaching and policy advising will continue for the police, including the border police, parts of the Internal Affairs Ministry, Civil Registry Agency, issues stemming from the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue and the Kosovo penal system,” she added.
EULEX helped draft 150 laws, its judges passed more than 640 sentences for corruption, organized crime, war crimes, human trafficking among other things, she said. Papadopuolou recalled that the mission also identified the remains of 427 people in the search for missing persons.
EULEX helped with the implementation of agreements reached during the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, including the registration of vehicles, issuing of passports and integration of the Kosovo Serbs into the security services and judiciary.
