The Government of Kosovo has taken a few days ago the final decision on the expropriation of immovable properties in Zubin Potok and Leposaviq, which will serve for infrastructure projects of public interest. This was done in accordance with the authoritative judgments of the Courts of the Republic of Kosovo.
In this regard, the owners of these lands have not agreed to speak publicly, while the Serbian citizens of the north consider the expropriation by the government as something irregular and for which an agreement had to be reached in advance with the owners of the lands.
Some of them have told KosovaPress that they see the process of expropriation as usurpation.
Dragolub Vllajic, a citizen from the north of Mitrovica, said that the issue of expropriation had to be resolved by reaching an agreement with the residents in advance.
Radovan Glligovic, another citizen from the north of Mitrovica, emphasized that private property is inviolable and that it should not have been taken by force from anyone.
According to him, the state owns enough unused lands that it should have used for its own purposes and not takes lands that are in private property.
Meanwhile, the analyst Branislav Kerstic has called the expropriation as a completely normal process.
He demanded that the state make compensation to the land owners as quickly and correctly as possible, while he said that there is no room for alarming the situation.
He added that only on Thursday, four residents from the village of Dren in the municipality of Leposaviq, land owners, have signed the application for compensation.
On the other hand, the expropriation of these properties has been seen as problematic since it began, in January of last year.
The USA and the EU have repeatedly called on the Government of Kosovo to be careful with the process, and for this reason the government had removed this issue from its agenda several times.
The expropriation of these properties was also mentioned by the US emissary for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar. Months ago, the American diplomat had connected this issue with Kosovo’s membership in the Council of Europe.
The rapporteur for Kosovo in the European Parliament, Viola von Cramon, also spoke against this decision.
“We are aware of this, it is unacceptable. It is one of the reasons that after I go to Kosovo, I will go to its north and talk to the citizens there. Then I will confront the government in Prishtina with this situation. It is one of my duties and I would say one of the main concerns at the moment. We see that stability in the north, if we can call it stability, is very fragile. We cannot agree to add more gasoline to this process”, said Cramon in a press conference.
The actions of the Kosovo government regarding the expropriations in the north were also opposed by the local Serbs themselves, who organized protests, while the reaction was not absent even from their largest party in Kosovo, ‘Serbian List’.
In January of this year, the Basic Court in Prishtina issued rulings with different epilogues in individual lawsuits against the government’s decision to expropriate some areas in Leposaviq and Zubin Potok.
In two cases, the court at first instance approved the individual or group lawsuit of the plot owners, members of the Serbian community. In three other cases, the Basic Court rejected individual or group lawsuits by owners against the same government decision.
Finally, regarding the decision of the Government of Kosovo on the expropriation in the north, the countries of the Quint, the EU Office in Kosovo and the Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Kosovo reacted on Thursday.
Through a joint statement, they have expressed regret for the decision taken by the Kosovo government on May 30, to finalize the expropriation of land in municipalities with a Serbian majority in the north of Kosovo.
“The Government of Kosovo violated its own laws and regulations due to procedural and technical flaws during the expropriation process. We note that the Kosovo judicial system identified similar legal concerns with the preliminary expropriation decision, which the Government has not yet addressed. We regret that the Kosovo government did not wait for all open court procedures to be fully adjudicated before taking this decision. Separately, we have shared our concerns with the Government that the draft expropriation law does not conform with Kosovo’s commitments made under the Ahtisaari Plan and have encouraged the government to modify the law accordingly before passing it”, reads the statement.
Otherwise, the surface of the land that is the object of expropriation is calculated to be over 100 hectares, 83 of which in the municipality of Leposaviq, while the others in the municipality of Zubin Potok, namely in Zubin Potok, Jasenovik, Banja, Veli Breg and Bërnjak. /A. Damati/
