• Chief negotiators resume dialogue, to discuss missing, license plates (KP/Koha)
• Serbia includes April elections in dialogue agenda (RFE)
• Russia facing new sanctions after Putin recognises breakaway regions (Reuters)
• With all eyes on Ukraine, Putin to send his envoy to Balkans (AP)
• Robelli: All of Europe, not only Ukraine, is under threat (Koha)
• Kurti: Work on increasing minimum wage begins (media)
• Kosovo indicts ex-minister over extra 53 million payment for motorway (BIRN)
• Pristina Mayor meets UNMIK chief (media)
• Youth participation and culture are important for Europeanisation and democratization of Kosovo (EWB)
• Women’s low employment in Kosovo blamed on kindergarten shortage (BIRN)
• COVID-19: 101 new cases, one death (media)

Chief negotiators resume dialogue, to discuss missing, license plates (KP/Koha)

Chief negotiators of Kosovo and Serbia, Besnik Bislimi and Petar Petkovic respectively, are expected to meet today in Brussels following a three-month break, Kosovapress reports.

According to the news website, the parties will be discussing the issue of missing persons and reaching of a permanent agreement on license plates.

Koha’s Brussels-based correspondent, Augustin Palokaj, reports that EU Special Representative Miroslav Lajcak will hold bilateral meetings with both chief negotiators in an attempt to organise a trilateral meeting. Citing an unnamed source in the EU, Palokaj also said that the parties will discuss arranging a potential meeting between Kurti and Vucic.

Serbia includes April elections in dialogue agenda (RFE)

Serbian officials have announced that they would raise the issue of Serbian elections taking place in the territory of Kosovo at the 22 February meeting with the Kosovo side, Radio Free Europe reports. It adds that the Government of Kosovo did not comment on the matter.

Director of the Office for Kosovo at the Government of Serbia, Petar Petkovic, told Serbian broadcaster RTS that the upcoming meeting in Brussels will focus on "missing persons, judiciary, as well as 3 April elections, because they have to take place in Kosovo."

Petkovic and Kosovo's Deputy Prime Minister Besnik Bislimi will be meeting on Tuesday in Brussels in the framework of the dialogue for normalisation of relations.

Russia facing new sanctions after Putin recognises breakaway regions (Reuters)

United Nations Security Council meets after Russia recognized two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent entities, in New York City, U.S.

The United States and its European allies are poised to announce harsh new sanctions against Russia on Tuesday after President Vladimir Putin formally recognised two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, escalating a security crisis on the continent.

Putin's announcement on Monday drew international condemnation and immediate U.S. sanctions, with President Joe Biden signing an executive order to halt U.S. business activity in the breakaway regions and ban imports of all goods from those areas controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

Britain, France and Germany also agreed to respond with sanctions, with Britain and the United States saying they would announce further measures on Tuesday.

"The United States will impose sanctions on Russia for this clear violation of international law and Ukraine sovereignty and territorial integrity," Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters after an emergency meeting of the Security Council late on Monday.

"We can, will, and must stand united in our calls for Russia to withdraw its forces, return to the diplomatic table and work toward peace." read more

Britain said it had drawn up sanctions to target those complicit in the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and those measures would come into force on Tuesday.

The Russian U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, warned Western powers to "think twice" and not worsen the situation.

Read full article at: https://reut.rs/3HafDh5

With all eyes on Ukraine, Putin to send his envoy to Balkans (AP)

With all eyes on a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is sending his top security envoy to the Balkans where Moscow has been trying to maintain influence mainly through its ally Serbia, according to reports.

Serbia’s pro-government media said Monday Nikolai Patrushev, the powerful secretary of the Kremlin’s Security Council, is due to arrive in Belgrade in the coming days for talks with Serbia President Aleksandar Vucic. Moscow hasn’t made an announcement about Patrushev’s trip.

The talks are reportedly to focus on Moscow’s claims that “mercenaries” from Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia are being sent from those Balkan states to fight on the Ukrainian side against the pro-Russia rebels amid fears of a Russian attack.

Read more at: https://bit.ly/3BEV7UH

Robelli: All of Europe, not only Ukraine, is under threat (Koha)

Publicist Enver Robelli writes in an opinion piece that “Germany is slowly realizing the Russian threat”. “After several weeks of silence or vague statements, the Chancellor has responded clearly to the Kremlin chief. Joschka Fischer is even clearer in his analysis. A minority of German leftists however continue to foster anti-American sentiments and keeps silent on the face of the Russian aggression,” he opines.

Robelli further writes that the German Chancellor’s opposition to Putin in Moscow at the press conference was welcomed by most German media. “Scholz was criticized for being passive toward the Ukraine crisis and the Russian aggression. He avoided all questions about the fate of the “Nord Stream 2” pipeline which would transport gas from Russia by avoiding Ukraine and Poland. Now, Scholz has implied between the lines that if Moscow attacks Ukraine, this will have consequences for “Nord Stream 2”. Putin had hoped that Germany will hold a neutral position on Ukraine and that he could use this to divide the West. It seems that for the time being this scenario won’t work,” he writes.

Kurti: Work on increasing minimum wage begins (media)

Prime Minister of Kosovo Albin Kurti said on Facebook that the work on increasing the minimum wage in Kosovo has begun.

"The first step is the regulation of the legal framework to avoid all existing legal uncertainties regarding the increase of minimum wage. The Ministry of Finance, Labour and Transfers has already prepared the draft law which will soon be up for public discussion. In addition to this, in coordination with the Economic-Social Council, the new level of the minimum wage will be proposed," Kurti wrote.

Kosovo indicts ex-minister over extra 53 million payment for motorway (BIRN)

Former Minister of Infrastructure Pal Lekaj and three other ministry officials have been indicted over the huge extra payment the government made to a US-Turkish consortium to build a highway.

Kosovo’s then Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj, called it one of the best infrastructural projects in the Balkans on the day it was inaugurated.

But the 61-kilometer-long motorway linking Kosovo and North Macedonia continues to yield controversies and corruption claims.

On February 4, the Kosovo Special Prosecution announced it had indicted former Minister of Infrastructure Pal Lekaj and two other ministry officials over the extra 53-million-euros the government gave the constructor, US-Turkish consortium Bechtel & Enka, for the government’s delays in payments.

The first version of indictment named three officials but on Saturday the prosecution announced that a fourth official, Besim Tahiri, had been added to the list.

The indictment says former minister Lekaj, as head of Inter-Ministerial Council for the construction of the motorway, engaged his adviser, Eset Berisha, to negotiate the extra cost with the company.

With Berisha’s help, it says Leka “completely ignored” the opinion of highway’s supervision company, Hill International.

This had concluded that the government owed around 14.8 million euros to Bechtel & Enka, whose “additional financial demands” it called called “totally unreasonable and unacceptable”.

“By hiding and not presenting the real situation to the other members of the [ministerial] Council, Lekaj together with Berisha … pushed other members of the council, under fake facts … to recommend that the government approve Bechtel & Enka’s request for 53.1 million euros, for extension of construction works,” the indictment says.

The indictment notes that Lekaj did not inform the council about Hill’s opinion, which could have saved the government around 38 million euros.

The defendants have denied wrongdoing, however. Lekaj insists the contract was signed by the previous government and that he took “all necessary measures”, to limit the extra expenses, “but problems had emerged because of delays of payment by the government”.

However, the prosecution has said it has not indicted Lekaj’s predecessor, Lutfi Zharku, a suspect in the initial stage of the investigations, as it found no evidence of his involvement.

Berisha is also charged with putting pressure on the head of ministry’s legal office to change its legal opinion about the additional payment.

Berisha, an adviser to Lekaj in the time of the payment, has however said that he wonders how prosecutors will justify his indictment, “when it is known that a political adviser to a minister has no executive, administrative or supervisory competencies.

“A political adviser cannot misuse office by signing contracts even if he wants to. There are no documents he [political adviser] can sign or seal,” he wrote on Facebook the day the indictment was filed.

The third defendant, Nebih Shatri, a ministry official, has said he signed the agreement between ministry and the company for the extension of the deadline, but that this agreement did not contain any named cost. Shatri has also said he signed the agreement “having the full confidence of Minister of Infrastructure Pal Lekaj”.

In June 2018, BIRN found out that the initial contract to construct the motorway, signed in July 2014, had come with a price tag of 599,944,263 euros. But 15 months later, the cost had jumped by more than 8 million as a result of the increase in VAT imposed by the government from 16 to 18 per cent.

When construction started in 2014, the work was due to finish in 2018. To give the project patriotic weight, Hashim Thaci, then Prime Minister, named the new highway after Arber Xhaferi, the late ethnic Albanian Macedonian leader who signed a peace agreement in Macedonia ending an armed conflict there in 2001.

This was second major infrastructure project Bechtel & Enka was contracted to undertake in Kosovo after another motorway which links Kosovo’c capital Pristina with Albania’s border point of Vermice, which was inaugurated in 2012.

Pristina Mayor meets UNMIK chief (media)

Several news websites report that Pristina Mayor Perparim Rama hosted on Monday the head of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Caroline Ziadeh. “With pleasure we revealed the plan for transformation of Pristina. The plan is not a coincidence and it is aimed at strengthening the youth, protection of environment, creation of possibilities for mobility of citizens, unification of all communities and creation of new opportunities for growth and development through urban transformation, is in full synchrony with the UNMIK values,” Rama said after the meeting. He also noted that Ziadeh on behalf of UNMIK expressed readiness to cooperate in transformation towards a Pristina for all its citizens.

Youth participation and culture are important for Europeanisation and democratization of Kosovo (EWB)

Participation of youth in creating policies and culture plays a significant role in the Europeanization and democratization of Kosovo, but young people and citizens must be heard by politicians, stressed the participants during the panel “Succeeding despite – The challenges of young Europeans “, organized by WB2EU network.

Editor in Chief of Kosovo 2.0 Besa Luci spoke about the experience of this portal, whose second-largest group of readers are young people in Kosovo. They have the opportunity to write various blogs on the Kosovo 2.0 portal about topics that concern them.

“A lot of issues that they are bringing up in this blog are really the issues that are actually faced by the society at large and it really made me think about how we think of youth and how we talk of youth, because in a lot of these blogs, what was distinct for me was that there were all written from a very personal experience that they went through, ”says Luci.

According to Luci, there are sometimes there is a tendency to think of youth as this like one group where age becomes a common denominator.

“Of course, age is important because it allows a lot of sharing of similar experiences but I would like the conversation to youth to go to the next stage, when we talk about youth as citizens and not through their age marker because I think it also ends up stripping them away from their agency as well, ”says Luci.

She stressed the importance of talking about fundamental and women’s rights, about LGBT rights, “about how different groups experience poverty and how different identity markers affect that as well”.

“When we think of democracy we tend to talk about freedom of expression, and we really think of the right of freedom of expression and the right to be listened to. I think this is important today, the right to be listened to, not just the right to speak. I think this applies to youth, ”says Luci.

Mimoza Kusari Lila, Member of the Parliament of the Republic of Kosovo, said that the government should take great responsibility and deliver concrete steps in fighting corruption, justice, education.

She assessed that people need to be told, need to actually hear it constantly.

“Today, there has been for the first time in Kosovo a lot of implementation of the policies that they have promised including free university education, including scholarships for minorities, funding the start up. However, in this line of work, I think it needs more intensified communication with people. Because from being a political party that has started and grown from a grassroots and had been close to the people to a party that is governing based on its principles and promises. We need to communicate that ”, said Kusari-Lila.

Eroll Bilibani, Producer / Head, Dokufest, Kosovo, spoke about the importance of cultural festivals, such as Dokufest, for the promotion of Kosovo, both externally and internally.

Dokufest has created this flavor that is known in Kosovo as a Dokufest spirit, but its journey was not that easy. Culture in Kosovo was financed through subsidies, once a year both at local and central level. The influence of culture on social economic development and potential was never recognized. It was seen as an activity that is entertainment to those who create it and those who experience it, “says Bilibani.

He told that Dokufest has increased economic activity, GDP in the amount of over 2.4 million euros and if consumption expenditures are included the annual impact is estimated to be over 4.7 million euros.

According to Bilibani, Dokufest has played a role in building the new history of Kosovo by creating an alternative space in which young people could learn, create and collaborate with others.

“This confirmed that culture is beyond entertainment for us that make and those to consume it. Dokufest and some other CSOs did the opposite of locked door policies. We gave opportunities, we didn’t considered youth as beneficiaries, they were our partners, their ideas they were always… if they had a good idea, they would go for that and we would help them “, he said.

The panel was organized within the WB2EU network, a long-term project gathering 17 think tanks and academic institutions from the Western Balkans and the EU until 2023. The project aims to establish a network that shall become a reference point in the area of EU enlargement and democratization efforts to the Western Balkan countries. The network will focus on gathering information and research results on EU enlargement, supporting civic democratic engagement through the publication of a series of policy briefs and op-eds in major media outlets in all partner countries and fostering cooperation and creating a high knowledge exchange platform with public actors.

Women’s low employment in Kosovo blamed on kindergarten shortage (BIRN)

The lack of children’s learning centres and kindergartens prevents many women from joining the labour market, a roundtable has heard.

Women in Kosovo are failing to participate in the labour market due to the lack of kindergartens and daycare centres, it was said on Monday at a roundtable, where a document from the Riinvest Institute on daycare centres in Kosovo was presented.

According to the Kosovo Agency of Statistics, only 25.9 of women in the country are officially employed. This percentage matches the small number of children attending preschool programs.

Tringë Shkodra, from the Riinvest Institute, said the Strategic Plan of the Ministry of Education 2017-2021, had aimed to raise the participation of children in pre-primary education to around 20 per cent, from only 6.7 per cent.

“Riinvest recommends that more affordable care centres be established and that development standards be implemented at a higher level,” Shkodra said.

Shkodra said the low rate of children attending preschool in Kosovo was largely a consequence of a lack of infrastructure, family income and investment.

She called for an amendment to the Family Law to recognize children’s care as a job. Shkodra cited a Millennium Challenge Corporation survey, which said that one result of women’s family obligations was that they were less active in the labour market.

Increasing the number of kindergartens and children care learning centers was one of the main pledges of the government led by Albin Kurti.

Minister of Education Arbërie Nagavci, a participant in the disscusion, said that only 19.9 percent of children were involved in any type of early education, and the government was working on a draft law on early education to be presented in three weeks’ time.

“We have allocated 5 million euros for children in early education. Special attention will be paid to rural areas, and children coming from rural areas will be subsidized,” Nagavci said.

The same problem was mentioned by Riinvest Institute about children in rural areas who attend less pre-school programs than average.

The director of Riinvest Institute, Alban Hashani, noted that although women represent about half of the population of Kosovo, their role in the economy is disproportionately small.

“We have re-updated this topic within the economic forum of women, who have discussed this topic, and we believe that it is the right time to discuss it again,” Hashani said.

The Deputy Mayor of Prishtina, Alban Zogaj, said they were interested in the model of public-private partnership, and subsidizing parents with coupons, to encourage more pre-school classes.

One of the main barriers for families is the cost of sending a child to kindergarten. According to Zogaj, private kindergartens are costly, and he sought to find a balance.

“There are 100 private kindergartens in Pristina that make a special contribution. But they need better regulation and we ask for cooperation with the ministry,” he said.

Majlinda Zhitia, a professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Prishtina, told the meeting that 15-year-olds who attended early education centres had shown poor results since, which according to her, may be due to their poor quality.

“More attention should be paid to what is provided to children. Children aged five are following 10 subjects and are overloaded with homework that conflicts with their developmental needs,” said Zhitia.

COVID-19: 101 new cases, one death (media)

101 new cases with COVID-19 and one death from the virus were recorded in the last 24 hours in Kosovo, the Ministry of Health said in a statement. 758 persons recovered from the virus during this time. There are 3,883 active cases with COVID-19 in Kosovo.