President of Kosovo Atifete Jahjaga said women and girls in Kosovo still do not have equal treatment in the society and added that the path to achieving equal rights is not easy. Jahjaga made the remarks in a conference on women’s rights in Pristina.
Albert Mustafa writes in his opinion peace today that Albanians are often exhorted if emotionally moved, as it was the case with the insult of the former Serb minister Jablanovic, or the Trepca case. Even though this is a good sign, he writes, “we should also prove that we are also a visionary population and that we do not stand the evil which continues to build around us.”
Representatives of opposition parties walked out of the meeting of Assembly presidency after the ruling coalition failed to support the request to discuss energy price increase in Thursday’s session of the Assembly. Opposition officials said the refusal to discuss the petition signed by citizens against energy price increase shows that the ruling parties are not concerned with the issue as this doesn’t affect them but the ordinary people.
Several news agencies carry today the opinion piece of the EULEX's Head of the Mission, Gabriele Meucci, distributed to the media on Wednesday. See below the full op-ed as written by Meucci:
Sources within the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), told this portal that the current leader of the party, Isa Mustafa, might withdraw from the race of regaining another mandate. “Major work and engagement as the Prime Minister of the country, has put Isa Mustafa in front of the dilemma of whether to run for another mandate. Isa Mustafa will most probably withdraw from the competition for the leader of the party,” said this source.
Kosovo Assembly deputies decided to postpone election of Kosovo Ombudsperson for Friday. The decision came after the proposal of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) although the opposition insisted on voting for the candidates at todays’ session as originally planned. The postponement is reported to have come as a result of disagreements between the coalition partners, PDK and LDK, on their preferred candidates for the post.
The EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn, said today in Pristina at the Western Balkans 6 Summit that the EU is ready to invest in the road and railway infrastructure to get the people of the Balkans closer to one another and to the EU. “To provide the most important investment, we need to be careful in selecting priorities. Furthermore, if you are determined to push the economy forward, you need to work together,” Hahn told regional ministers gathered at the summit.
The Kosovo government has presented the European Union report of the Brussels dialogue and implementation of agreements covering the period from 1 October 2014 to 20 March 2015.
The report, signed by minister without portfolio and Kosovo chief negotiator, Edita Tahiri, contains the Kosovo government’s assessment on the progress and challenges in the process of implementation of agreements for normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia.
Astrit Gashi writes that Mustafa’s new government has marked three unknown records so far, during its first 100 days. For the first time, he writes, the first quarter finds the government of Kosovo without an endorsed governing program by the Assembly. Furthermore, being that the Assembly has not received the endorsed draft of the government, the public opinion would have been in a complete dark, if Gazeta Blic and movement FOL did not publish it.
Fatmir Limaj, the leader of the Initiative for Kosovo (NISMA), told RTV 21 that he would not remain silent regarding the scandal of judicial conspiracy against him, related to “Klecka” case. He said that he will act according to the advice of his lawyer and added that he cannot understand why President Jahjaga remained silent regarding this scandal. “In essence, we have violation of the rights, for which the President of the Republic of Kosovo is the guarantee, defender of the constitution in this country,” LImaj said.