Kosovo Security Council is inaugurated

12/02/2009

Kosovo now has a council to advise the president on national security.

By Besa Beqiri for Southeast European Times in Pristina -- 12/02/09

The country's security agencies "will co-operate with [its neighbours] and the international community in fighting crime, smuggling and cross-border and international trafficking," Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said at the inauguration of the KSC. [Getty Images]

Kosovo inaugurated its Security Council on Wednesday (February 11th), taking another step envisioned in Martti Ahtisaari's blueprint for the newly independent country.

The Kosovo Security Council (KSC), which convened for the first time on Wednesday, will be the country's highest-ranking advisory body on security matters. It "will assess the government's ten-year security plan, together with yearly intelligence agency plans and strategic priorities, prior to their adoption by the government", according to sources. It also promised during its first meeting to establish security institutions throughout the country.

The council will have executive powers during states of emergency if the president approves.

In addition, the KSC will review security-related draft laws, the interior ministry's policing strategies, plans of the national customs service, international security-related treaties and proposals for security agencies' operations abroad.

According to the Pristina daily Express, the council's members will be the prime minister, deputy prime ministers, minister in charge of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) and ministers for foreign affairs, justice, interior, economy and communities and return. The last of those ministers is currently an ethnic Serb, Sasa Rasic.

Non-permanent members will be a representative of the president, the director of the Kosovo Intelligence Agency, the commander of the KSF and other senior officials. International representatives will not be offered membership but will be invited to meetings.

The country's security agencies "will co-operate with [its neighbours] and the international community in fighting crime, smuggling and cross-border and international trafficking," Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said at the inauguration of the KSC. President Fatmir Sejdiu added that Kosovo will be an important player in promoting its own stability and maintaining good relations with its neighbours and other countries.

International representatives in Pristina hailed the council's formation. It provides "a strong foundation for the formation and co-ordination of effective national security strategies. ... [It] will function in the interest of all of Kosovo's citizens [and] ... will help Kosovo move closer to Euro-Atlantic structures," said Fletcher Burton, deputy international civilian representative in Kosovo.

The KSC's creation comes as part of legislation "aimed at ensuring democratic control of security institutions", remarked the International Civilian Office in Kosovo.

The KSC was scheduled to begin operation sooner, but the government was unable to form it until it appointed a director of the Kosovo Intelligence Agency. Both the constitution and the Ahtisaari plan envisioned the KSC's eventual formation.