In Velika Hoca, Kosovo customs officers with ROSU special unit are confiscating wine from the Serbian winegrowers

In Velika Hoca, the confiscation of the domestic wine from Srdjan Petrovic, the owner of the vineyard, by the Kosovo customs officers is in progress; he has not put his wine on the market, nor has he sold it, since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

For Kosovo Online, Petrovic points out that the customs officers justify their intentions by the fact that he does not have a registered company and adds that he never hid the wine he owns, nor did he sell it and that he put the company on hold with the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

"We have been producing wine for six generations, I put my company on hold in accordance with the law when the coronavirus pandemic started, the company was not activated after that, and the quantities of wine I made - I made for my own needs. I have not sold this wine anywhere, neither in the north nor in the south. I was making quantities with which I could enter the market and be competitive," Petrovic told us.
 

Petrovic wanted to do everything in accordance with the law and in agreement with other producers.

"All producers, including me, are obliged to report the quantities of grapes that we picked by December 10th, and by January 15th to report the quantities of wine we produced. We all expected to report that by then, but meanwhile someone called in, and the inspectors came and listed 40,000 liters of wine and three tons of plum brandy," Petrovic confirmed to us

Petrovic points out that he did nothing against the law.

"I immediately asked how much I owed and what I needed to do to make everything legal. They told me that I needed to pay around 35,000 euros, I agreed to that, I hired a lawyer and the customs officials agreed to settle; to pay everything I owe, to re-register, and to enter the legal flows, but now they have come and they want to confiscate it," Petrovic says.

He says that he is one of the biggest producers and that right now people are gathering in front of his house out of fear of what will happen to them.

"There are a large number of people in front of the house, who are afraid of what will happen to them. The customs officers told us that they were waiting for the tanker that should arrive. There are members of the Rosu special unit here and there is great tension. Even if that tanker arrives, what will they do?, except to destroy all the wine. There are ten kinds of wine of different varieties here. When it is poured into one cistern, and it takes more than one day of pouring, no one will benefit from that wine, except that everything will be useless," Petrovic concluded.