Kurti: We are applying for the EU candidate status this week

The Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, announced at today's Government session that Kosovo would submit a request for EU candidate status this week, Dukagjini reports.

"A year ago, at the annual meeting of the council within the framework of the Stabilization and Association Agreement in Brussels, we announced that we would apply for the EU this year. Today, at the 112th session of the government, we announce that we will apply for the EU candidate status this week," Kurti said.

Kurti said that Kosovo was the leader in the region in terms of the rule of law and democracy.

"As you know, we are the last country in the Western Balkans to apply for the EU candidate status, although we are the first country in the region in terms of the rule of law, freedom, and democracy. The time has come for the EU candidate status," Kurti said.

The Prime Minister of Kosovo reiterated that, compared to the countries of the region, Kosovo was better prepared for membership in this organization.

Kurti constantly points out that democratic values rule in Kosovo and apostrophizes the rule of law, minority rights, and civil rights.

However, connoisseurs of the situation in Pristina and many analysts do not share that opinion. In recent days, the Serbs in the north of Kosovo have been under constant pressure from Kuti's government, which has caused a de-escalation of the situation with its unilateral decisions. One of those decisions was the announcement of local elections for the mayors of four municipalities in the north after the Serbs had left the Kosovo institutions.

Although many Kosovo analysts said that the elections should be postponed, the authorities in Pristina had waited for the situation to fully escalate before deciding to postpone the elections.

Kurti's attitude towards national minorities is without a doubt best reflected in his dealings with the Serbian community. The Serbs in the north of Kosovo have been at the barricades for four days now, due to the arrest of Dejan Pantic, a former member of the Kosovo Police, who was accused, without any evidence, of having participated in the incidents in the north, which occurred during the attempts of Albanian members of the Municipal Election Commissions (MEC) to occupy the premises, of the MEC in North Mitrovica, Leposavic and Zubin Potok, with the assistance of the police.

Analyst Dukagjin Gorani today called Kurti's actions in the north pure stupidity.

Kurti is also criticized by those from the international public who are aware of his intentions and way of functioning. The former US envoy for dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, Richard Grenell, said that Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti was "creating unilateral chaos in the north and trying to divert the attention of the people of Kosovo from his disastrous economic policy". Grenell also assessed that the US should stop all aid to Kosovo if Kurti continued his destructive behavior.

Despite the fact that the Serb List was the absolute winner of the parliamentary elections when it came to the Serbian community, Kurti appointed Nenad Rasic to the post of the Minister for Communities and Returns, which had remained vacant after the resignation of the President of the Serb List, Goran Rakic, who at the last parliamentary elections, was the leader of the Civic Initiative "Freedom, Justice and Survival" list, which won 0.173 percent of the vote.

Such a decision was evaluated to be against the Constitution of Kosovo and was condemned by the European Union, but also by local experts and politicians.

The former President of the Constitutional Court of Kosovo, Enver Hasani, was sure that this was a violation of the Constitution, while the President of the opposition Democratic League of Kosovo, Lutfi Haziri, assessed today that Kurti's decision had influenced him to be left out of the Summit of the EU and the countries of the Western Balkans, which had been recently held in Tirana.

Kurti's appeal to the rule of law was perhaps best illustrated by the fact that he persistently refused to implement the Constitutional Court's decision to return the land to the Visoki Decani monastery. Former Kosovo Minister of Foreign Affairs, Skender Hyseni, recently reminded of this fact.

The international community has also been calling for the implementation of that decision for a long time, but those calls remain unanswered by the Kosovo Prime Minister.