• Kurti blames past governments for energy crisis (RTK)
• Kosovo reports first cases of COVID-19 Omicron (media)
• Citizens warn protests over power outages (euronews.al)
• German expert arrives; repair of Kosova B bloc underway (Koha)
• Serbia blocks transit goods, Kosovo still without any action (Kosovapress)
• US-sanctioned Serb’s company subcontracts work to Kosovo Albanians (BIRN)
• “Easier to decipher Da Vinci Code, than EU position on Open Balkan” (Koha)
• Haziri: Serbia is playing a political game in Open Balkan (euronews.al)
• BIRN Kosovo Won Prize After Prize in 2021 (BIRN)

Kurti blames past governments for energy crisis (RTK)

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti in his speech at the 45th meeting of the General Council of Vetevendosje Movement, criticized the former governments for the electricity crisis in Kosovo.

Kurti said that he understands the frustration of citizens for the lack of energy.

"I understand the frustration of every citizen with the lack of electricity. Let this be a reminder of the situation in which those who ruled for two decades left the state, because as people of darkness who were doing things at night and out of sight of the citizens, they had no other way but to leave Kosovo than in ‘dark and hell’," Kurti said.

He has said that next year they will propose a longer-term solution to the energy issue.

Kosovo reports first cases of COVID-19 Omicron (media)

Kosovo's Ministry of Health said on Sunday it had registered its first nine cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant. The ministry added that “the Omicron variant is expected to worsen the epidemiologic situation in the country.” Kosovo has seen a relatively calm period in the past weeks with only 12 positive cases and one death on Sunday.

The Ministry said that out of 22 people who tested positive to COVID-19 in the past 10 days, nine had been identified as Omicron variant. Out of the nine persons that tested positive to the Omicron variant, two came from the United States, two from the UK, one from France and four other cases were Kosovars who have not travelled abroad.

There are 349 active cases with COVID-19 in Kosovo.

Citizens warn protests over power outages (euronews.al)

Kosovo’s Minister of Economy, Artane Rizvanolli, said that a probe will be launched into the power outages lasting more than the planned time. She also added that citizens’ complaints over the alleged extended power outages will be gathered into a file.

Meanwhile, a protest is set to take place on Monday calling for the minister to resign. “On Monday, December 27, starting at 13:00, we gather near KEDS in protest against this alarming situation and demand: electricity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, dismissal of Minister Rizvanolli and getting KEDS under state ownership. “The protests will not stop until this company takes responsibility for its failures, we will return to normalcy”, said Dibran Hoxha, the organizer of the protest.

Kosovo is in the midst of an energy crisis which has led to nationwide power outages.

German expert arrives; repair of Kosova B block underway (Koha)

Kosovo citizens were faced with power cuts on Sunday too, as Prime Minister Albin Kurti said that he totally understands the frustration of the people with the energy situation but also added that this is a result of the poor work of previous governments. Meanwhile, the repair of a block of Kosova B power plant is underway. The paper also learns that a German expert has arrived on Saturday and that in a matter of days it will be known how long the repair of the block will last.

Serbia blocks transit goods, Kosovo still without any action (Kosovapress)

Although this year there was an increase of exports of Kosovo, Kosovar producers are recently failing to fulfill orders in European countries, especially in Germany and Switzerland. This is because Serbia has set barriers to Kosovo producers for the transit of goods to these European countries.

Regarding these barriers set by the Serbian authorities, especially after Kosovo’s request for equality in CEFTA, it is still unknown whether any reciprocal action will be taken by the Kosovo authorities, even though the Minister of Industry, Entrepreneurship and Trade, Rozeta Hajdari said that the issue will be addressed in Brussels.

US-sanctioned Serb’s company subcontracts work to Kosovo Albanians (BIRN)

A company owned by a Kosovo Serb blacklisted by the US for alleged corruption has been winning government tenders in Kosovo’s Serb-dominated north and then subcontracting construction work to ethnic Albanian-owned firms.

In recent years, money from Kosovo’s budget has poured into the accounts of RAD, a company owned by Radule Stevic, who was blacklisted by the United States Treasury Department this month for alleged involvement in smuggling and money-laundering groups in the Serb-majority north of the country.

Since Kosovo’s declaration of independence, most of the Kosovo government tenders in the country’s north have been won by RAD, the company owned by Stevic.

RAD won 21 tenders worth over 1.8 million euros since 2018, mainly from the government in Pristina, according to data from the Open Procurement Transparency Portal, a website created by the Kosovo NGO Fol.

BIRN’s investigation found that Kosovo Albanian businessman Arben Jetullahu has been involved in contracts with Stevic to complete a number of capital projects in four Kosovo Serb-dominant northern municipalities, North Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, Leposavic, and Zvecan.

Jetullahu has often partnered with Idriz Thaci, the brother of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, who is now facing war crime charges in The Hague, to invest the money that was paid out by Stevic for work in the north of Kosovo.

Some of these investments have gone into the construction of apartments in Ulcinj in Montenegro which are also co-owned by Idriz Thaci.

Stevic and three of his companies were blacklisted in December by the US Treasury Department. Also blacklisted was Milan Radojicic, a controversial businessman and deputy leader of the Belgrade-backed Srpska Lista political party who is suspected of leading an organised crime group accused of murdering Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic in 2018.

Radojicic’s ally Zvonko Veselinovic was also on the list. The Treasury Department claimed that Veselinovic heads an organised crime group “engaged in a large-scale bribery scheme with Kosovo and Serbian security officials who facilitate the group’s illicit trafficking of goods, money, narcotics, and weapons between Kosovo and Serbia”.

Stevic has denied any wrongdoing. “I own a company registered in the Kosovo system, I pay taxes regularly, I am legitimate and 100 per cent clean,” he told KoSSev news website after the US Treasury Department announcement. He said he does not know why he was linked to Zvonko Veselinovic.

Stevic has not only won many tenders financed by Kosovo’s state budget, but he also benefited financially from projects in the north funded by the Serbian government. Their value is unknown because Kosovo does not have statistics on how much money the Serbian government has invested in projects in Kosovo.

Stevic’s company does not have many contracted employees, so he has outsourced a lot of work, mainly to Kosovo Albanian-owned companies, paying them part of the money he got from the state budget. This is not illegal.

However, companies owned by Kosovo Albanians have not been able to openly work in the Serb-majority North or win tenders there, mainly due to security fears, so collaboration with Stevic was needed to ease their involvement in the area.

Stevic’s company RAD distributed the tenders won to other companies to carry out the works, the largest subcontractor being the company ABC, owned by Arben Jetullahu.

“We started working in [Serb-dominated] North Mitrovica since 2015 or 2016. The partner we collaborated with, who contracted my company for road construction, was Radule Stevic,” Jetullahu told BIRN.

“I met him when I competed in a tender that I did not manage to win. He offered collaboration because he did not have machinery for road construction,” he added.

Jetullahu said that the collaboration ended as soon as Stevic was put on the US blacklist.

A source who worked on some of the construction projects in north Kosovo told BIRN on condition of anonymity that Kosovo Albanian companies have been contracted to work on many projects there, via tenders that BIRN has found were won by Stevic.

The projects were funded from Kosovo’s state budget, but in many cases Serbia invested as well. The money provided by either Kosovo or Serbia was much larger than the amount that was eventually invested in the completed projects.

The source told BIRN that all the work conducted around the contested Ujman/Gazivode lake was done by Kosovo Albanian-owned companies, and completed ahead of a high-profile visit by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to the lake, which is claimed by both Kosovo and Serbia, in September 2018.

“Everything had to be finished for when Vucic visited Ujman, if I recall correctly we had two to three months in total to finish everything. They also worked during the night to finish the work by the date when he [Vucic] would visit,” the source said, adding that the “railings were hand-painted with Serbia’s flag by Albanian employees”.

The source also told BIRN that ethnic Albanian employees of Kosovo Albanian-owned companies also worked in building a monument of Tzar Lazar, the medieval Serbian ruler who died in the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, a key moment in Serbian history.

Ethnic Albanian employees also worked for RAD on the construction of the 300-home Sunny Valley estate in Zvecan in Kosovo, funded by the Serbian government, in 2019, as well as on demolishing the controversial wall that was built to divide the Serb-dominated north and Albanian-dominated south of the city of Mitrovica, among other projects.

BIRN tried to speak to Stevic about these claims but he declined to give a statement.

Other Kosovo Albanian-owned companies that worked in the Serb-majority north include the company Komplast, owned by Gani Ibrahimi, which worked on the Zvecan bridge.

Ibrahimi told BIRN that RAD contracted his company, but he has not been paid for the work yet.

“To be honest we have not been paid by anyone, they are indebted to us… that company RAD,” Ibrahimi said, adding that his company did not have an official contract.

Another Kosovo Albanian, Ibrahim Kostanica, owner of a company called Iliria in South Mitrovica which produces concrete, told BIRN that his firm has also been contracted by RAD.

“We work with that company, they win tenders from the Kosovo government, they pay us via the bank and with proper receipts, and we have work amounting to around 50,000 euros a month,” Kostanica told BIRN.Investments in Montenegro

Arben Jetullahu, owner of the company ABC, which has worked with US-blacklisted businessman Stevic, has also worked with companies owned by relatives of important Kosovo politicians and invested in projects in Montenegro.

Jetullahu has opened the company Premium Bau LLC in Kosovo in collaboration with the businessman Bekim Pireva, who works in asphalt construction. A similarly named company, Premium Bau Ulcinj, is registered in Montenegro where Jetullahu owns 33 per cent of the shares and Pireva the other 34 per cent.

According to Montenegro’s business registry, Idriz Thaci, brother of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, also owns shares in the same company. This company is currently completing an apartment complex in Ulcinj in Montenegro.

Jetullahu confirmed to BIRN that he partnered with Idriz Thaci in the company registered in Montenegro, and that “we have invested in person, not as a company, close to 500,000 euros each”.

Idriz Thaci’s assistant also confirmed to BIRN that he is a partner of Jetullahu and Pireva in the company that is building in Ulcinj, but threatened “legal consequences” if the information is given a “political connotation” in BIRN’s report.

Pireva also confirmed his involvement in the apartment complex in Ulcinj. He told BIRN that he has several businesses in Kosovo in which Kosovo Serbs also have shares. He owns 70 per cent of the company Energy Power LLC in Zubin Potok while two Serbs own the rest of the shares.

“Easier to decipher Da Vinci Code, than the EU position on Open Balkan” (Koha)

Brussels-based correspondent and columnist Augustin Palokaj writes in an opinion piece that “deciphering the position of the European Union on the ‘Open Balkan’ seems like deciphering the Da Vinci Code”. He argues that the EU can simply say whether it supports the initiative or not. “But it is not doing either of that. Therefore, one can conclude that it ‘supports’ and ‘does not support’ the initiative. This is typical for the EU. For now, the closest understanding of the truth is that the EU is not in favor of the ‘Open Balkan’ initiative, despite the position of Commissioner Varhelyi in support of the initiative,” Palokaj writes.

Haziri: Serbia is playing a political game in Open Balkan (euronews.al)

Lutfi Haziri, deputy leader of the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo said that even though Serbia is sending an invitation to all countries in the region to join the Open Balkan initiative, it is still insisting on having a ‘warlike rapport’ with Kosovo.

Past issues, he said, continue to steer Kosovo away from joining. “Serbia hasn’t recognized the sovereignty and territory of Kosovo and it is senseless for the latter to join this initiative,” Haziri said.

According to him, at the regional level, Serbia is putting up a front as a friendly and cooperative nation, but when it comes to their neighbor, Kosovo, they keep hinting at tensions of war.

Haziri argued that Serbia’s behavior in relation to Kosovo, is indicative of a double standard and that they have turned this into a political culture, which according to the LDK representative, is nothing but a ‘political game’.

Lastly, he added that Serbia has to recognize Kosovo’s borders and only then, can it talk about the possibility of having Kosovo join the Open Balkan initiative.

BIRN Kosovo Won Prize After Prize in 2021 (BIRN)

BIRN Kosovo staff won eight awards over the year for groundbreaking stories on corruption, public procurement and the environment, as well as taking the journalist of the year and cameraman of the year 2021 awards.

A far from usual year for the world, 2021 was a challenge for Kosovo as well. After another year in a pandemic, Kosovo had two set of elections and saw a major shift of political power, giving a ray of hope for the future of its new democracy.

As parts of the world witnessed the strengthening of authoritarian regimes that expanded their oppressive habits and became even keener on muzzling the media, independent media organizations awarded journalists for safeguarding freedom of expression.

Freedom of expression “is the precondition for democracy and lasting peace”, the Nobel Academy said in awarding the Nobel Prize to journalists Maria Ressa and Dimitry Andreyevich.

Throughout the year, BIRN continued reporting, investigating and presenting to the public some of the most pressing issues, and these were some of the prizes its staffers received:

KALLXO.com journalist Kastriot Berisha was given the Journalist of 2021 awarded by the Association of Journalists of Kosovo, AGK.

Berisha was awarded for his research in the justice sector, which had a significant social impact and resulted in the launch of criminal investigations, disciplinary action and the suspension of a judge.

His first investigation into the Gjilan Prosecutor’s Office revealed a scheme of engaging medical experts as forensic experts in violation of the law.

The second analyzed a scandalously light sentence issued by the Peja Court for the rape of a 15-year-old. The in-depth analysis of the verdict revealed major violations of the law and called for an investigation.

AGK awarded Denis Slovenia as Best Cameraman of 2021 for his work in his shooting a story entitled, “Pilot since the age of 17”. For the shooting of this video he had used three technological devices: a drone, a GO PRO camera, and a device for recording interviews.

In May 2021, BIRN investigative journalist Doruntina Kastrati won first prize for report in the field of public procurement in Kosovo, from the FOl Movement, entitled, “Suspicious tender for minister’s family”.

BIRN investigative journalists Valon Fana and Virtyte Gërvalla won third prize for research entitled, “Municipality of Gazmend Muhaxheri organizes tender for family of Ramiz Kelmendi”.

In July 2021,  the BIRN team was awarded the Best Investigative Prize by the European Union, with first and third prizes for their stories.

First prize went to editor-in-chief Jeta Xharra and editor Visar Prebreza, for research that revealed that businessman Blerim Devolli was behind six companies that have earned millions of euros from the sale of solar energy.

Editor Kreshnik Gashi and journalist Adelina Ahmeti won third prize from the EU for their research on smuggling.

On December 20, three BIRN journalists were awarded the Environmental Prize for stories on the environment.

Journalist Egzon Dahsyla won first prize for a story entitled “Illegal incineration continues, statef fails to treat decommissioned tires even when they are recyclable”.

Antigona Isufi and Blerta Begisholli won second prize for the story ,“‘Urban chaos’ blamed for disappearance of greenery in Kosovo”, published in Prishtina Insight.