Petkovic: The attempt to have a non-governmental organization draft the CSM Statute makes the dialogue meaningless

The attempt for any non-governmental organization to take the responsibility for drafting the Statute of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities directly makes the dialogue meaningless and violates the agreement that defined the issue, the director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petkovic says.

"The drafting of the CSM Statute is the exclusive competence of the Management Team for the establishment of the Community, as precisely issued by the agreements reached in the dialogue in Brussels in 2013 and 2015, so there is not a single legal basis or reason for this work to be carried out by any non-governmental organization, or any other entity," Petkovic explained in a press release.

This, he says, is unequivocally clear from Article B item 2 of the Agreement entitled "Scope and mandate of the management team for the establishment of the CSM" from 2013, which states that the drafting of the CSM Statute is the exclusive competence of the Management Team.

He adds that this is also confirmed by Article 21 of the General Principles from 2015, which states that "the Statute of the CSM will be drawn up by the Management Team and presented to the high-level dialogue within four months".

"The attempt for any non-governmental organization to take responsibility for drafting the CSM Statute directly makes the dialogue meaningless and violates the agreements that defined this issue. It is clear that this is another attempt to present the CSM as a kind of non-governmental organization, with drastically smaller powers compared to those agreed upon - where it is specified that the CSM would have executive powers to protect the collective rights of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija," he pointed out.

Petkovic pointed out that no one from the Management Team had requested the services of the "Friedrich Ebert" organization for the drafting of the CSM Statute, because that work had been entrusted exclusively to the Management Team, which, he underlined, had also been confirmed by the EU report from April 2018.

"In accordance with the entrusted mandate, the Management Team finished the Draft of the Statute almost 5 years ago, more precisely in August 2018, and officially informed the EU about it. I remind you that until today, the EU has not fulfilled its obligation and convened a high-level dialogue where the Management Team would present the Draft of the Statute," he said.

Petkovic emphasized that this was not just about ignoring the agreements reached in Brussels in 2013 and 2015; there was also an anti-democratic attempt to decide on the threatened rights of the Serbs by those who had no contact with their real lives in Kosovo and Metohija and who did not represent the Serbis in the province.

"Last but not least is the fact that just four months ago, this organization denied the information of that time that it had been working on drafting the CSM Statute, even though it had been publicly pointed out. The fact that they deny themselves today speaks volumes about their true intentions," he concluded.