Elshani: Campaign on the implementation of the Law on Foreigners and vehicles with authorization begins

The Deputy Director of the Kosovo Police for the North Region, Veton Elshani, told Kosovo Online that an information campaign on the implementation of the Law on Foreigners and vehicles with Serbian license plates driven under authorization began today. The campaign will last until January 15, and there will be no penalties during this period.

Elshani stated that there are still no new details he can share with citizens, and that there remain many unresolved issues that the Ministry of Internal Affairs will address during this informational period.

“As we said, from November 1 to January 15 there will be a campaign. It doesn’t mean we will start enforcing anything right away, because we don’t have more information to share yet, but most likely there will be a working group within the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and we will see whether there will be brochures for this campaign and how to communicate with the media, perhaps also with NGOs, maybe a roundtable or something similar for the informational part – so that people know what we are saying and what we expect starting from January 15. But during this time, from November 1 to January 15, there will be no penalties, and nothing unusual compared to the current situation,” Elshani said.

He explained that nothing will change compared to the current situation until January 15, and that only the information campaign will be conducted during that time.

“We initially planned to start implementing the law concerning vehicle authorizations from November 1, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs decided that it should begin on January 15. I don’t see that anything will change, so citizens have time until January 15, but most likely it will be exactly as the law states – that vehicles cannot be on the streets. What is important, however, is that until January 15, people can continue to drive with authorization,” he said.

According to Elshani, there will be no possibility to re-register vehicles with Serbian license plates to Kosovo plates either now or after January 15. Vehicles, he explained, can only be officially imported and cleared through customs, and only if they are not older than ten years.

“I don’t think re-registration will be possible. I can’t comment on any political agreements, but based on previous campaigns, I believe there won’t be any even after January 15. We had the Law on Foreigners and initially planned to implement it from October 1, but that was just a campaign, and now we’ll have a campaign until January 15. This is more of an opportunity for people to understand which documents they need, who can still drive with authorization, or to be sure they can no longer do so. Until that point, neither the border police nor anyone else will create any problems for citizens,” Elshani emphasized.

He added that this decision applies to both the north and the south.

“There will be no problems across the entire territory of Kosovo. What we said about the campaign lasting until January 15 applies to the whole territory of Kosovo,” he confirmed.

Elshani also explained that the Law on Foreigners applies to all those who do not have Kosovo documents.

“Whether they are Albanians from Albania or Serbs from Serbia, they must come to the police station and register on the third day, that is, within 72 hours after entering the territory of Kosovo. If they stay in a hotel, for example, the hotel must report that. But we will go slowly, we will not create problems right away. If someone doesn’t know the procedure, we’ll learn together with the citizens. There will be no issues; it’s more of a psychological burden, but we don’t expect any problems,” he said.

Speaking about documents issued by Serbian police departments in towns within Kosovo, Elshani stressed that the Kosovo Police does not recognize them. He added that any change on this issue could only happen at the political level.

“We do not recognize those documents. For a while, they could be converted. We know there’s a problem – for example, there are mothers who only have IDs issued by the Police Directorate of Kosovska Mitrovica, while their husbands and children have valid documents, but this is more of a political issue. Unless the Ministry of Internal Affairs makes a different decision, those documents remain invalid for us. During this campaign, we’ll try to resolve that issue as well, because we also need to know precisely what is valid. But it won’t happen that people leave for Serbia on Friday and can’t return on Monday – that won’t be the case. About a month before, we will know and inform the public accordingly,” Elshani concluded.