• Prime Minister Kurti meets European Council President Michel (media)
• Police gather at Assembly and Government before veterans’ protest (media)
• Bomb alarms in community schools in different municipalities (media)
• Albanian PM Rama calls on Ukraine to recognize Kosovo (Koha)
• Defence Minister Mehaj: Kosovo ready to help Ukraine (media)
• Open Balkans shows no sign of delivering promised freedoms (BIRN)
• Kosovo, Albania governments to hold a joint meeting on June 20 (euronews.al)
• Kosovo’s Trepca giant struggles to pay off debts to miners (BIRN)

Prime Minister Kurti meets European Council President Michel (media)

Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, met on Wednesday with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, thanking him for the support that the European Union gave to the reconstruction and development of Kosovo.

A press release issued by Kurti’s office notes that he expressed the strong will of the people of Kosovo for a European perspective and informed Michel that Kosovo plans to apply for the candidate status by the end of this year. Kurti said the Kosovo government is committed to implement the Stabilization/Association Agreement and said he hopes there will be support for visa liberalization for Kosovo’s citizens and also for Kosovo’s membership bid at the Council of Europe.

Prime Minister Kurti confirmed the commitment to regional cooperation, which is based on mutual recognition of documents and that with independent mechanisms can be both a step towards the Common Market within the European Union and in line with membership in the European Union.

On the dialogue with Serbia, Kurti said Kosovo has a constructive approach for a legally binding agreement that focuses on mutual recognition.

Michel said that the Western Balkans are very important for the European Union and that the resolution of relations between Kosovo and Serbia is very important.

Kurti also tweeted after the meeting: “our European agenda and alignment with EU policies are driven by our shared values and goals for a united Europe that is whole and free. EU needs the Western Balkans to become whole, and this year Kosovo will apply for membership.”

Under the leading front-page headline Kosovo is asked to make progress in dialogue, Koha Ditore reports that in his meetings with President Osmani and Prime Minister Kurti, Michel called for efforts to implement the obligations that Kosovo has assumed in the EU-facilitated dialogue with Serbia and told Kosovo’s leaders about the procedures that must be followed for membership in the European Union.

Police gather at Assembly and Government before veterans’ protest (media)

Most news websites are reporting that large numbers of police officers are mobilizing in front of the Assembly and Government premises before the KLA War Veterans begin their protest at 9:30. The veterans will protest the adoption of the draft law on the increase of the minimum wage as they were not included in the scheme. Acting leader of the war veterans, Faton Klinaku, said in a Facebook post that transport with buses will be organised to bring veterans from all over Kosovo to join today’s protest. In an interview with TV Dukagjini, Klinaku said the protesters will be peaceful because they have no problems with the buildings of the Assembly, the Government, or the Kosovo Police, but that their problems are with the decision-making of government officials and MPs.

Bomb alarms in community schools in different municipalities (media)

Koha reports that Kosovo Police received information this morning about bomb alarms in several community schools in different regions of Kosovo. A spokesman for Kosovo Police in Gjilan region told the news website: “Early this morning we received information that bombs have been placed in Serb schools. Kosovo Police is on alert and units are on the field to verify the information. There is no room for panic because police are on high alert and has all necessary capacities to intervene”. A police spokesman in the north of Kosovo confirmed to Kosovapress that there has been a bomb alarm in several schools in the four northern municipalities. Police are on the field and pupils have been evacuated from the schools.

Albanian PM Rama calls on Ukraine to recognize Kosovo (Koha)

Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, said during his visit to Ukraine and after his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky, that Ukraine should recognize Kosovo’s independence. “Kosovo has sided with Ukraine. Ukraine has not yet recognized Kosovo and said this at the press conference and publicly that you need to consider recognizing Kosovo, because those people deserve it. In reality, they proved something extraordinary because they did not remain hostages of the past. It would be good for Ukraine to convey the right message on behalf of the new political community that we want to rebuild,” Rama was quoted as saying.

Defence Minister Mehaj: Kosovo ready to help Ukraine (media)

Kosovo’s Minister of Defence, Armend Mehaj, said on Wednesday that Kosovo is committed to helping Ukraine. “Attended Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in Brussels, chaired by Secretary of Defense Austin to express Kosovo’s strong commitment and support to helping Ukraine in any capacity deemed appropriate by our allies. In all moments, we stay united with our allies and partners,” Mehaj wrote on Twitter after the meeting.

Open Balkans shows no sign of delivering promised freedoms (BIRN)

Despite all the ambitious pledges about economic integration and the formation of a single market, the initiative has not made any steps in that direction.

The Open Balkans initiative members held another meeting last week in Ohrid, North Macedonia.

Representatives of Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia signed another set of documents – an agreement on recognition of diplomas and three memoranda of understanding on various topics.

The batch of documents, together with those signed in July and December last year, allegedly aim to integrate the region economically, looking up to the economic integration model of the European Union, while the countries wait to become EU members themselves.

Yet Open Balkans is still far from constituting a proper international organization formally, or a customs union substantively, let alone something resembling a Balkan EU.

Despite all the proclamations about economic integration and the formation of a single market, not one step has been made yet in that direction.

One general problem is that it remains unclear what the initiative wants to achieve, and how it intends to do so.

Read more at: https://bit.ly/3Olv7m3

Kosovo, Albania governments to hold a joint meeting on June 20 (euronews.al)

The governments of Albania and Kosovo are scheduled to hold a joint meeting on June 20 in Prishtina. In their previous meeting in November last year, the two governments signed 13 new agreements. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said the two sides have allocated a fund that will serve to set up a joint team of experts that will be tasked with implementing the above-mentioned agreements. Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said that cooperation between the two governments helps improve the quality of life of both of their citizens and their main objective of integration into the European Union.

Kosovo’s Trepca giant struggles to pay off debts to miners (BIRN)

Kosovo’s mining giant Trepca owes hundreds of thousands of euros to its miners in terms of union fees, pension funds and health insurance, BIRN has found out.

Trepca enterprise deducts 1 per cent of each miner’s salary as a union membership fee, but has never transferred this money to the unions, creating a large debt.

Gani Osmani, head of Trepca Union in the Stanterg mine, told BIRN’s Kallxo Pernime show that the enterprise owes it about 50,000 euros. “The company took the contributions but did not transfer them to our account,” Osmani told BIRN.

Blerim Ymeri, member of the Union in the Artane mine, said it is owed over 25,000 euros.

Enis Abdurrahmani, acting Chief Executive of Trepca, admits that the enterprise “has debts to the unions” and pledged that “the rest of the debt will be paid very soon”.

Besides union membership fees debt, the company also owes its miners’ pension funds around 9 million euros. The company stopped paying the pension fund in September 2019.

Osmani told BIRN: “This is a violation done to the employees, because we have cases where retired miners have received less [than their expected contributions]”.

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