Petkovic wrote to Lajcak: Pristina’s decision to collect the alleged electricity debt is another attack on dialogue and Serbs

The director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petkovic, sent a letter to the EU's special envoy for dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, in which he expressed his strong protest and concern regarding the decision of the Kosovo government regarding the collection of the alleged electricity debt owed to KOSST, which, according to the announcement, will from Pristina, be implemented partly from the funds of the budgets of municipalities with a Serbian majority in the north of Kosovo, and partly from the Development Fund for the North.

In the letter, Petkovic points out that the allegations on which the decision is based are absolutely incorrect and unfounded, and that the intention itself is to unilaterally withdraw funds from the Development Fund for the North for any purpose, except for those provided for in the Agreement on Customs and the Development Fund for the North from 2013, which primarily concern the development of these four municipalities, represents the most brutal attack on the dialogue process, and above all on the population of the four majority Serb municipalities for whose development and improvement of life the funds in the Fund are intended.

In the letter, which, as confirmed to Kosovo Online by the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, was sent to Lajcak, it is stated that Belgrade strongly opposes such a scenario and demands an immediate reaction from the EU in order to prevent Pristina's intention to steal the Fund's funds.

It is also reminded that this development would directly threaten the progress achieved in the field of energy, bearing in mind that on December 9, the company Elektrosever and KEDS signed a commercial agreement regulating mutual relations in business in the area of the aforementioned four municipalities with a Serbian majority.

"Since the main role of the aforementioned Fund is the financing of financially sustainable, economic and significant environmental projects that primarily relate to construction and maintenance, and aim to improve the quality of life of the local population, as well as particularly vulnerable categories of the population, any redistribution of existing financial resources that is not in accordance with the mentioned goal, it represents a direct violation of point 7 of the aforementioned Agreement on Customs and the Development Fund for the North", the letter emphasized.

Petkovic assessed that any redistribution of existing financial resources contrary to these goals is a direct violation of the Agreement on Customs and the Development Fund for the North from 2013. "Taking into account everything previously mentioned, perhaps even more importantly, the announced payment of the alleged debt for electricity from the financial resources of the Fund for the North is one more in a series of unilateral, illegal and illegitimate decisions of the Provisional Authorities in Pristina and, as such, represents a direct and gross violation Agreement on Customs from 2013", he warned.

Otherwise, Minister Murati, explaining the decision, stated that the municipality of North Mitrovica owes 6.5 million euros, the municipality of Zvecan 1.1 million, the municipality of Zubin Potok 1.6 million, the municipality of Leposavic 2.6 million euros, which amounts to a total of 11.8 million euros for all four municipalities.

The Serbian List reacted to the decision of the Kosovo government, which assessed that it blatantly denies and degrades the Brussels agreements that were reached in the previous period and that must have the protection of the European Union, which was the guarantor of the agreements reached.