NGOs from the north rejected Kosovo Interior Ministry’s invitation to a meeting on the laws on vehicles and foreigners implementation: This is not dialogue

Civil society organizations from northern Kosovo have decided not to participate in an informational meeting organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kosovo regarding the implementation of the Law on Foreigners and the Law on Vehicles. As NGOs from northern Kosovo stated, the invitation sent three days before the implementation of the laws is not an invitation to dialogue, but an attempt to retroactively legitimize decisions that have already been made.

“We refuse to be accomplices in a process that is not consultative, but reduced to mere informing about already adopted decisions. An invitation to a meeting, sent only three days before the full implementation of the laws, is not an invitation to dialogue, but an attempt to retroactively legitimize finished decisions that will directly endanger the basic rights of thousands of citizens,” the organizations said in a joint statement.

Civil society organizations, as they point out, have repeatedly expressed readiness to participate in timely and meaningful consultations in order, they add, to highlight the serious consequences these laws, if implemented in their current form, will have on the everyday lives of citizens and to offer concrete solutions, but such a process has never been established.

“Participation in a meeting under such circumstances would mean giving legitimacy to a process that is neither transparent nor inclusive. Civil society organizations will not participate in processes that serve merely as a formality, while at the same time laws are being introduced that in their essence deepen legal uncertainty and discrimination,” the NGOs added.

In the statement, they call on the institutions to first postpone implementation and then establish a real, transparent, and inclusive consultation process with the local community before making the necessary amendments to these laws so that they correspond to the local context.

The statement was signed by: New Social Initiative, Center for Affirmative Social Action, Institute for Territorial Economic Development, AKTIV, and Advocacy Center for Democratic Culture (ACDC).