President of the Municipality of North Mitrovica Ksenija Bozovic said that Pristina has no legal basis to dismiss the four municipal assemblies in northern Kosovo.  “Assemblies adopted the budget within the statutory deadline, and there are two legal decisions related to the budget. In any case, there is no legal framework for the dismissal. But, like everything else, the budget became a political issue that will have to be resolved between Belgrade and Pristina,” said Ksenija Bozovic. 

The Mayor of Leposavic Dragan Jablanović said that four municipalities in northern Kosovo adopted budget proposals for 2015 in September last year. At the insistence of the Kosovo Ministry of Finance, planned budgets of four Serbian municipalities were then drastically reduced, and for example Leposavic municipality, instead of planned 11.5 million received 2.25 million euro, said Jablanović. 

According to him, they were given a written guarantee from the deputy prime minister of Kosovo Edita Tahiri that municipalities with Serbian majority will have the priority and help in all ministries of the Government of Kosovo. “We accepted it and after that we did not receive any comments on the budget. Only now they remembered that supposedly we should plan health and education,” added Jablanović.