The paper’s Brussels-based correspondent, Augustin Palokaj, writes today that  because of the election campaign, Serbia now can drag out even more the process of normalizing relations with Kosovo. “Serbia PM Aleksandar Vucic is in a favorable position, because there is nothing to lose for Serbia. Negotiations have started and chapters have been opened,” Palokaj writes.  According to the author, the international community should be more careful with Serbia and Vucic.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reviewed the implementation of the Stand-By agreement with Kosovo which enables it to disburse €35 million. The decision was taken at the meeting of the IMF Executive Board on 15 January. According to Kosovo Finance Minister, Avdullah Hoti, the funds will be available by next week and that the decision came after fulfillment of the IMF criteria.

“Who would have thought that on an average Kosovar day, eight years after the independence, rightfully or not, one party would see the other as Milosevic’s regime, while the other would see the first one as ISIS force,” writes Lumir Abdixhiku today and adds that clashes in Kosovo have reached very far. He does not see a calm future of Kosovo and considers that clashes among the political parties would not end naturally without an intervention from abroad. “As far as internal intervention is concerned, I have lost all hopes.

Adriatik Kelmendi writes that after the verdict of the Constitutional Court on the establishment of the Association/Community of the Serb-majority municipalities, the 200 thousand signatures of the petition against this Association, tens of thousands of protesters, the only solution for the situation in Kosovo appears to be early elections. However, new elections would be a solution only if the five main political parties of Albanian majority reach a consensus on a several-points plan for national reconciliation.

The paper’s Brussels-based correspondent Augustin Palokaj writes that the “ease” with which the international community views the latest developments in Kosovo, should make the local leaders take action to decrease tensions and prevent further deepening of the political crisis. Palokaj says there is no doubt that the current government of Kosovo enjoys considerable support from the international community but it has adopted a wrong approach in presenting the opposition’s protests as doomed.

In the end-year edition of the paper, publisher Flaka Surroi writes that her wish for the New Year is for Kosovo to change for the better and that she is hopeful it will. She wishes the government would admit it is responsible for all the problems with the agreement on Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities and decides not to implement it. She wishes the Assembly of Kosovo set up an all-party group for drafting a strategy for talks with Serbia and Kosovo’s foreign policy.

Looking ahead to 2016, columnist Enver Robelli observes that the citizens of Kosovo will continue to face the same problems as during the outgoing year: “lack of democrats to build a functioning state.” 2016 will also be the year when the Special Court will begin its work and, according to Robelli, some of the people responsible for “staining” Kosovo are expected to face it. Even with these people out of the way, Kosovo will still lack democrats, he says adding that it is final time for the society to find people that can take Kosovo out of the political stalemate and restore faith.

The paper’s Brussels-based correspondent Augustin Palokaj writes that as the prime ministers of Kosovo and Serbia are set to meet early next year in a new round of dialogue for normalization of relations, authorities in the EU are trying to view in a positive light the recent ruling of the Kosovo’s Constitutional Court on the legality of the Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities instead of focusing on the real problem: the fact that certain parts of the agreement establishing the Association/Community are unconstitutional.

The paper runs an opinion piece by Kofi A. Annan, a former secretary-general of the United Nations, and Chair of the Africa Progress Panel, written for Project Syndicate. In 2001, Annan and the United Nations were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Kosovo’s Minister for European Integration, Bekim Collaku, writes in an opinion piece that the European Commission’s visa liberalization report on Kosovo, which was published last Friday, is the last of its kind and that the citizens of Kosovo will be able to travel visa free in 2016.