Stosic: The Government in Pristina is buying time with the announcement to submit the Draft CSM Statute to the Court

Slobodan Stosic, program manager of the Center for Advocacy of Democratic Culture (ACDC), estimates that the Kosovo government's announcement that it will send the draft statute of the Union of Serbian Municipalities to the Constitutional Court for evaluation by the end of this month, based on the proposal of the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation, is an attempt to buy time until Kosovo is admitted to the Council of Europe.

"The proposal for the statute of the CSM FES Foundation is slightly weaker than the one proposed by Miroslav Lajcak and the EU, so I consider that move to buy time. Also, the court's assessment may take some time, and just sending the draft to the court is not a sufficient degree of fulfillment of obligations for it to be positive in the context of Kosovo's admission to the Council of Europe. In addition, there have been several versions of the statute so far, and the whole process cannot be done in such a hurry, that the draft be sent for constitutionality assessment and that the issue of the CSM is considered to be resolved," Stosic told Kosovo Online.

He indicates that even if the Constitutional Court's assessment were positive, there is still a lot of work to be done regarding the formation of the CSM and that it is not realistic to expect its formation in the near future.

"I would like to remind you that we have four municipalities in the north whose mayors are Kosovo Albanians, and therefore the formation of the Community is not possible. We have a political reality that does not reflect the needs of citizens because we have mayors and councilors who do not represent the majority of the population here," says Stosic.