Headlines - 17.09.2013 Tahiri: 3 November elections, highly important (Zëri) Deputy Prime Minister Edita Tahiri led Kosovo delegation in a meeting in Brussels on local elections facilitated by the OSCE. The meeting focused on preparations for upcoming elections and stressed their importance. Tahiri is reported to have confirmed the commitment of the Kosovo Government to hold elections in a democratic and European spirit by respecting Kosovo laws as specified by agreement on normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia. “These local elections have a special importance being that they take place for the first time throughout Kosovo and that they contribute substantially to the establishment of democracy, rule of law and normality in the country’s northern municipalities”, said Tahiri.  MUP conditions integration with amnesty (Tribuna) Official Belgrade did not manage to hand over the lists of MUP members who want to integrate in Kosovo Police, by 16 September, as agreed in Brussels. This daily has learned from the sources within the Government of Kosovo that Serbia needs additional time to convince MUP members to integrate in Kosovo Police. Rashit Çalaj from Kosovo Police, who is also member of the team in the discussions with Serbia, said for this daily that Serbian party is waiting for the Law on amnesty to come in power and then to hand over the lists of MUP members who want to integrate in Kosovo Police.  PTK privatisation returns to Kosovo Assembly agenda (Koha Ditore) Chairperson of the Assembly’s commission for budget and finance Safete Hadërgjonaj said she believed that the Government’s decision to sell 75 percent of Kosovo Post and Telecom shares will secure the necessary votes at the Assembly session on Thursday as the ruling party, PDK, has lobbied a great deal over the last days to ensure there is quorum during the voting. Leading opposition party, LDK, has announced it will again boycott the session when PTK privatisation will be voted while AAK said it will vote against. Vetëvendosje on the other hand has not yet decided whether it will boycott the session like last time or will stay on. Decision on “Serbia” list on the last day of certification process (Koha Ditore) Kosovo Central Election Commission CEC spokesperson, Valmir Elezi, was not able to say when the Serb list is going to be certified and comment on the changes about its name, but he implied that it will happen during the process of certification, which is not finished yet. “Until now, 94 political subjects have been certified, there are 9 others in the process, from them five political parties and 5 civic initiatives, altogether 103 political subjects will be certified,” said Elezi. EULEX donates vehicles to Kosovo Police in the north (dailies) EU rule of law mission in an official ceremony donated 22 vehicles as well as office equipment to the newly-established regional Kosovo Police in the north. However, to get to the site, Koha Ditore reports that EULEX chief Berndt Borchardt and Kosovo Police general director Shpend Maxhuni used side roads and did not travel along the main bridge in River Ibri. Haradinaj: Thaçi and I talked about the north (Koha Ditore) AAK leader Ramush Haradinaj said that in his last meeting with Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi they talked about issues in the north and its integration in Kosovo institutions. “Kosovo has a sensitive topic, which is the implementation of rule of law in the north or integration of the north. We are working continuously this to happen. We had difficulties in the past in few aspects that are in connection with elections. However, we are continuing to work on these issues which are national issues,” said Haradinaj.  Thaçi risks impairing relations with IMF (Zëri) Decision of Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi to increase salaries of teachers ahead of local elections may carry consequences in the relations with International Monetary Fund which continues to insist that there can be no budget expenditures for salaries. “When it comes to IMF, Prime Minister has demonstrated in the past that he does not care if relations with this institution are disrupted, convinced that they will be such for a while but then go back to normal again. However, this carries a price because Kosovo this way also blocks relations with other financial institutions,” said economy expert Ibrahim Rexhepi. He warned that increasing salaries could have a negative impact on inflation and lead to increase of prices. “At the same time we should not forget that using the budget for electoral goals is illegal and this way the ruling party puts other parties in an unequal position,” said Rexhepi. Kosovo Government blocks the work of the Court of Tenders (Koha Ditore) Kosovo Government has blocked the work of the authority for procurement review for more than 45 days as it is not proposing to the Assembly new names for the board of this institution. As a result, Procurement Review Body cannot review complaints of violations of the law on procurement. There are 45 complaints that have been handed over for suspicions of violations. The lack of a decision of procurement review body allows to proceed with signature of contracts that may constitute violations.