The Ministry of Kosovo Security Force and the Ministry of Defense of Croatia will sign a bilateral plan for 2015. The signing will take place during the visit of the Minister of Kosovo Security Force Haki Demolli and KSF Commander, Lieutenant General Rahman Rama to Croatia. Demolli and Rama were invited by the Minister of Defense of Croatia, Ante Kotromanovic for a two-day visit.
The European Union Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy & Enlargement, Johannes Hahn, will visit Kosovo on 24-25 March. During his visit, Hahn will meet with Kosovo’s political leaders, while he will also attend the inauguration of the Palace of Justice Complex, which is funded by the European Union and the government of Kosovo.
On the sixteenth anniversary of NATO strikes in Kosovo, Brussels based correspondent of this daily, Augustin Palokaj, writes that each year at this date, people of Kosovo remember where they were when they heard the news of the air strikes, and remember the happiness that they felt for the end of Slobodan Milosevic’s aggression in former Yugoslavia, and his intention of creating greater Serbia. Palokaj further brings arguments which according to him give “not one but a hundred of good reasons for NATO’s intervention at that time.”
Around 30 Serbs have started throwing stones at the Albanian workers who early this morning started rebuilding their houses in Kroi i Vitakut, in the northern part of Mitrovica. Following the incident, which is the second one this week, the Albanian workers stopped the construction. No injuries have been reported. Albanian workers later resumed their construction work, after Kosovo Police and KFOR troops arrived at the site.
Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Isa Mustafa, is participating in the European People’s Party Summit, which is taking place On Thursday in Brussels. Besides Prime Minister Mustafa, the Summit will attend leaders of European Union member states, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mariano Rahoj, Viktor Orban, Nicolas Sarkozy and other leaders of European right-wing parties. The main theme of the Summit will be the next meeting of the Council of Europe.
Kosovo’s Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Kujtim Shala, together with international representatives, held a coordination meeting on Tuesday in order to make concrete plans for supporting the young people of Kosovo. Shala said that the government of Kosovo is interested to promote and increase participation of youth in decision-making processes.
Koha Ditore’s Brussels based correspondent writes in his opinion piece today about the initial expectations of Kosovo population regarding the establishment of the EULEX mission in Kosovo. “Kosovo people loved their independence, they did not believe that the structures of their state would be able or that they would have the political will to fight the organized crime and corruption up to the most senior level…Therefore, except for Vetevendosje, no one opposed the EULEX mission.
The paper’s Swiss-based columnist Enver Robelli, writes in an opinion piece that Kosovo people are at risk from cancer due to Obiliq Power Plant, they are also poor because they have been robbed by politicians and they are hopeless because of the "sterile debates that happen in Kosovo society." The author writes that a society this humiliated would have to find the strength to revolt.
Dozens of Roma families from the village Plemetin have migrated to the European Union countries in the past few months. Their favorite destination is France, where they feel they have greater chances to win asylum status. Roma families in Kosovo complain for poor living conditions and high unemployment rate have pushed them to flee Kosovo. Ismet Haliti is one of the members of this community who is unemployed and has an eight-member family. He says that he would follow the example of others, to migrate to the EU, if he had the money.
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.