Page 18 - SE Outlook Regions 2023

1.5 Politics - Kosovo

Kosovo is entering 2023 with a protracted political crisis and elevated
tensions with neighboring Serbia over Pristina’s new rules for car
license plates, which sparked anger among Serbs in northern Kosovo
and the Serbian leadership.

The root of the problem was Pristina’s requirement for the replacement
of old license plates issued by the Serbian authorities for Kosovo’s
Serbs with Kosovan official RKS plates – which was due to enter force
on August 1, 2022. The measure sparked an angry reaction from
Serbian officials and the population in northern Kosovo, which does not
recognise Pristina’s authority. There were fears the situation could
escalate as ethnic Serbs started to block the roads leading to the
border before the entry of the new measures into force. However, the
crisis was averted and Kosovo Serbs started to remove barricades in
northern Kosovo on December 29 after the US and EU exerted
pressure on the authorities to de-escalate the situation.

Serbian officials consider that the new rules for the replacement of
license plates of local Serbs represent a step towards the expulsion of
the Serbian population from Kosovo. Around 50,000 Serbs in northern
Kosovo do not recognise the government in Pristina and consider
themselves to be part of Serbia, from which Kosovo seceded in 2008.

As the situation worsened in the second half of 2022, Nato
secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg told Serbian President Aleksandar
Vucic on August 3 that Nato-led forces in Kosovo, KFOR, are ready to
intervene if stability was jeopardised.

Numerous incidents were reported in that period. The serious one was
on November 5 when Serbs in northern Kosovo decided to abandon
the state institutions where they work in protest against the authorities’
insistence on continuing with re-registration of cars with Serbian plates.
That triggered extraordinary local elections in four municipalities in the
north, which were later postponed until April 2023 due to the worsening
security situation.

The implementation of licence plate decision was postponed several
times with the latest postponement for April 2023 agreed on November
23, 2022 between Belgrade and Pristina, according to which Belgrade
will stop issuing license plates with Kosovan cities’ denominations,
while Pristina will suspend further actions related to the re-registration
of vehicles with RKS plates.

However, the problem was not solved and tensions escalated further by
constant provocation by both sides. Among the incidents reported were
demolition of municipal building, an exchange of fire between ethnic
Serb groups and the Kosovo’s police, an attack on an EULEX car patrol

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