SETimes.comRohan rules out division of Kosovo
30/03/2006
A UN proposal on Kosovo decentralisation aims to allow municipalities to run their own affairs within the limits of the Kosovo legal system, UN deputy special envoy Albert Rohan said Thursday.
By Blerta Foniqi for Southeast European Times in Pristina – 30/03/06
UN deputy special envoy Albert Rohan has ruled out the possibility of partitioning Kosovo and any idea of creating a separate, ethnically based enclave in the mainly Serb-populated part of the province.
"We want to give municipalities a maximum of competencies, they should be able to run their affairs, always within the limits of the Kosovo legal system," Rohan told a press conference at UNMIK headquarters in Pristina on Thursday (30 March). However, he added, "this does not mean and cannot mean the creation of a separate entity which is, so to speak, taken out of the normal legal institutional structures of Kosovo. We shall oppose any division, or internal division of Kosovo, and we shall also oppose any third layer of governance between the central authorities and the municipalities."
Rohan was in Kosovo to present a decentralisation plan drawn up by UN experts on the basis of the first two rounds of direct talks between the negotiating teams from Belgrade and Pristina. The goals, he said, are to improve good governance by bringing administration closer to the cities, and to address the concerns of ethnic minority groups, including Kosovo's Serbs.
The UN plan would allow municipalities to establish partnerships on concrete issues such as education, health and cultural affairs, and also to establish an association (or multiple associations) of municipalities, Rohan said. In addition, he said, the UN experts agreed with a Serbian call for "reasonably big municipalities with a certain clear percentage of majority of one ethnic group".
At the same time, he urged Serbs to respond to efforts by the Kosovo leadership to reach out to them. "Absenteeism is counterproductive. They should engage, they should participate, they should co-operate," he said.
Rohan also sharply criticised a directive from Belgrade that obliges Kosovo Serbs to give up revenues that they might receive from Kosovo institutions on top of the benefits given to them by Serbia. "The situation of the Kosovo Serbs is difficult enough and to force them to forego certain parts of their income will make the situation even more difficult. And I also want to make it clear that this directive and the efforts now to implement it actively are in total contradiction to the concept of decentralisation we are pursuing in the Vienna talks," Rohan said.
"We want an inclusive society, we want a multiethnic society, in which municipalities have a maximum of self-governance, but this total separation is not what corresponds to our concept," he added.
Rohan's press conference came at the end of a three-day visit to Kosovo, during which he met with President Fatmir Sejdiu, Prime Minister Agim Ceku and Deputy Prime Minister Lutfi Haziri. He also travelled to Zvecan and met with the Serb mayors of three northern municipalities, presenting them with the UN-drafted proposal and outlining the principles behind it.