President of the Municipality Partes / Pasjan, near Gnjilane, Dragan Nikolic pointed out that the situation in the Serbian municipalities is extremely bad, even one year after the local elections. "The major problem is the budget. Partes/Pasjane municipality is the municipality with one hundred per cent of Serbian population and we received lower budget because we have not participated in the census," said Nikolic.

He says that the budget was reduced 50 per cent for operational costs. "According to the government regulation, this and last year we had to pay out salaries from our budget, without any increase of that budget, and that is a situation with all municipalities south of the Iber/ Ibar River," said Nikolic.

Nikolic says that privatization "is another lever" which affects the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija.