Is boycott of Kosovo institutions strategy of the Serbian List or a ‘theater’?

Kosovo Assembly Speaker Kadri Veseli, in an opinion piece, calls on the Serbian List to return to the Kosovo institutions “and not deny their constituency a basic democratic right: the right for institutional representation”. “If the goal of the Serbian List is to improve the wellbeing of Kosovo Serbs, it can certainly not achieve this by leaving them without representation and by sentencing them to isolation. Isolation never brings good results … Kosovo Serbs, same as all other citizens, need programs of development, and not political myths and legends.

A condition for the return of Serb representatives to the Kosovo institutions is the formation of a Community/Association of Serb municipalities (ZSO) in Kosovo.

The Belgrade-based daily, Vecernje Novosti further writes that this will be "one of the main conclusions" of the upcoming joint session of all Serb municipalities in Kosovo.

Another daily, Blic, writes that Serbian officials will once again ask Pristina to fulfil its part of the obligations stemming from the Brussels agreement during the next negotiating round at the EU seat.

Prime Minister of Kosovo Isa Mustafa said at the Kosovo Assembly session that they have received no demand from the Serbian List ministers to rejoin the government. He said he asked the Serb ministers to discuss the issue but added that they expressed no readiness to do so. “We have not received conditions and we would not accept them,” said Mustafa.

Former leader of the movement Self-Determination Albin Kurti said that Kosovo Serbs are not the problem, but Serbia and the Serbian List are, because they have made mini-states out of Serb municipalities.

At the debate organized by the NGO ‘Fol’, Kurti said that special court is result of the pressure exerted by Serbian and Russia.

Representatives of Serbs should return to Kosovo government and its institutions, assessed analysts.

This topic was discussed on B92 news by former minister for Kosovo affairs in the Serbian government Goran Bogdanovic and analyst Dusan Janjic from the Forum for Ethnic Relations.

Bogdanovic said that boycott is not the way to fight for your interests. “At times when I was the minister, in several occasions representatives of Serbs have boycotted Kosovo institutions and we had more damage than benefits,” said Bogdanovic.

MP from the ranks of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDS) in the Kosovo parliament Nenad Rasic said that adoption of the law on special court requires 80 votes of MPs, amongst whom and at least 14 votes of MPs from the ranks of non-Albanians.

“Ruling coalition has the majority, however, unless MPs form the Serbian List are not present at the session where draft law is discussed, there is possibility that the law won’t be adopted,” said Rasic to RTK2.

“Politics is possibility of a compromise. I hope that Belgrade and Pristina will reach compromise, because that would be, before everything, for the benefit of citizens of Kosovo, including Serbs,” said analyst Farmir Sheholli.

Serbian National Forum (SNF) estimated that political situation in Kosovo and Metohija is extremely dramatic and threatens to escalate into physical conflicts.

Djuric made the announcement after meeting with representatives of Serbs from Kosovo, attended and by the Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, adding that the next week will be held an emergency meeting with the representatives of the Serbian municipalities, to discuss actions after dismissal of Minister Aleksandar Jablanovic and "political humiliation of Serbian people."