This certainly has made a lot of your allies very alarmed on what happens
next. We've had criticism from the unions.
We've had criticism from the EU. You've refused to back down.
Is that your final word? Central Bank of Kosovo made this
regulation. So it's an independent state agency.
It's not a decision of our government, and it was not made in January this
year. But in December last year preparations
were going on and everything was going smoothly, precisely out of success for
preparing for this new regulation. Belgrade has set an alarming tone with
intention to cause ethnic tensions. Just like we have switched from car
plates came from Milosevic. Time to new archives.
We're going to do this. I mean, the concern is that a lot of
people that you really rely on Right. Rely on your partners in the EU and the
US have taking this at a provocation. I mean, if they say you're cracking down
on Serb minority northern Kosovo, you surely could call the central bank and
say, look, politically this is not a good thing.
Let's reverse this. I cannot do that because we are a
democratic republic and independent state agencies are not subjugated to the
government. That's why we're going to do a smooth
transition. We're going to do a hotline where Serbs
can call and complain for whatever is not okay, according to them.
But we are we cannot reverse this decision.
So they ask for more time and we're giving more time.
And even our American and European partners now are saying that regulation
is legal because is fighting terrorist financing illicit activities.
But we should not be too hasty in like absolute
implementation. And this is what we are going we're
going to do. Throughout this month of February.
Kosovo is also preparing for municipal elections in the north, which local
Serbs boycotted last time, leading to the unrest that we saw in May.
How will this, you know, concerns with the currency affect those elections?
We have been giving social benefits payments to all Serbs of Kosovo who are
our citizens. I am not only prime minister of
Albanians, even though Albanians are 93%.
We have 4% who are Serbs and the thousands of
families and tens of thousands of individuals that receive payments in
Europe. We are not banning dinar.
We're just formalizing it. We're just making things legal regarding
these elections so they get used in our. So if you don't ban it, but they can
they can they can have dinners. And there are ten commercial banks in
Kosovo where as means of payment, they can exchange in €2 dinars where our
currency during occupation in previous century.
Since liberation in 1989, we had first Deutschmark German market.
Then from 2002 we had euro. So what is your end game with Serbs in
the north? Well, we want them to integrate in the
society and vast majority of them have done so.
They have Kosovar ID cards, they have Kosovar passports, they work together.
The problem is not strips of Kosovo. The problem is autocratic regime in
Belgrade, which is a Russian proxy. It's a client regime of Kremlin.
And they are doing this pre apocalyptic, alarming in inciting ethnic tensions
because they want to cause troubles in the Balkans.
Prime Minister. So how do you see the integration?
What does that look like? You talked about IDs.
How how do you see it more concretely? Almost three years ago, I won on this
ticket of jobs and justice. I believe that justice integrates
people, fairness in the institutions, social justice, and also court justice.
But on the other hand, we are also providing jobs for people despite their
ethnicity. Employment in Kosova in comparison to
three years ago increased by around 18%. And that's why we want all communities
to benefit from the economic growth of Kosovo, which is over 6% of GDP in
average in these last three years. Prime Minister, a number of
international backers, of course, have already withheld aid because of some of
your actions. Will you continue to do this despite
economic repercussions? I want peace and security, but I want
peace and security through democracy, through rule of law and through
constitutionality of our republic. So I'm not going to give up on one for
the sake of the other. How will you replace missing funds?
We are giving all our,
like, financing programs and social. Benefits.
Health care grants for education. For pensioners, for retirees to all.
Just like we do for the Albanians. In addition, receive from Serbia some
payments. And they can do that because Serbia can
send dinners. But in the in the ATMs, they're going to
receive euros. There will be this exchange from dinar
to euro. We are not going to have any kind of
punitive measures. We don't want to punish anyone.
We want to help Serbs. I am prime Minister who wants people to
have more money, not less money. And I think we're going to come out
victorious from all this, a crisis which has been caused by Belgrade, not by
local forces. But, Prime Minister, there's an
understanding, right, amongst international institutions that what
you've done is antagonising. And you had, when you were elected,
promised a dialogue with the Serbs. So are you backing down on that promise
or what was this a misunderstanding? On the contrary, we have an agreement
with Serbia on 27th of February this year.
It will be one year that in Brussels we made this basic treaty.
The problem is that Serbia is not signing it and is not respecting it.
So I think that appeasement of Serbia
should stop from both Brussels and Washington, D.C.
I believe that they are considering Serbia as a kind of irrational actor,
which has to be appeased. I think we need accountability,
transparency, European Union and NATO for the entire Balkans, and Kosovo has
no alternative to that. Prime Minister, how important is it that
you sign something sooner rather than later?
We could see Donald Trump at the White House.
He has been more super supportive of Serbia.
I think it's important to do this as soon as possible.
But then again, we cannot force Serbia. It is European Union and us who can do
that. Meanwhile, Serbia is taking
armament and ammunition from both Russian Federation and China and they
want American tolerance and EU money in addition.
But the way you're talking Prime Minister makes it very difficult, right,
for the normalisation to start. Is that how would you assess the current
relationship? We have seen last year Belgrade agreeing
to the text of agreements due to pressure of EU and US.
So basically pressure functions and works, but it has to be done by Brussels
and Washington DC. We are the most democratic country in
Western Balkans and according to Freedom House, Transparency International World
Justice Project, when it comes to anti-corruption, when it comes to
political rights and civil liberties, Kosova is number one among six countries
of Western Balkans, which still are not part of European Union.
I understand one of the lynchpin is, of course, the Association of Serb
Municipalities in Kosovo. How is that going?
That is now turned into so-called self-management of Serbian community.
Is Article seven of Basic Treaty that we have done last year?
It has also an implementation annex from March last year.
But out of 11 articles, Serbia already violated eight of them and mid-December
last year, Madam Prime Minister Brnabic from Serbia sent a letter to EU saying
that they are basically withdrawing from the agreement.
So for me it is very difficult to proceed further.
When they don't sign the agreement, don't respect it, they do violations.
And finally they sent a letter where they say the don't obey to it anymore.
Tensions are high. How do you see the Balkans in terms of
security in the next ten years? We wouldn't have these tensions if we
would have de facto and the EU recognition as amongst all the
countries. Serbia recognizes the EU that Montenegro
and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but not de facto.
On the other hand, they do recognise us de facto, but not the EU.
We need all the region into EU, into non-NATO.
But for this reason, Belgrade has to put sanctions to Russian Federation and
adhere to Western democratic values. But Prime Minister, do you accept that
maybe the dinner situation that you say the central bank has put in place is not
ideal timing? No, I think that it was long overdue.
We need to legalise banking and financing.
All financial institutions must have their own license from all republic, and
that's what we are doing. So there will be no more sacks with cash
dinar coming from Belgrade to Kosovo to destroy political pluralism and to
finance terrorist organizations who killed our policemen on 24th of
September last week. Some institutions say that is, you know,
the timing is not perfect. But Prime Minister, thank you so much
for for your time, of course, for coming on Bloomberg.
With us. That was Eileen Courtney, the prime
minister of Kosovo.