Agon Maliqi from the civil society has revealed on his Facebook profile the position he held regarding the Association of municipalities with a Serbian majority in the meeting called on Tuesday by the US Embassy in Kosovo.
He said that his perspective on this issue comes from that part of the civil society that works in the field of democratic rights, that wants to see peace and cooperation in the region, as well as to see the Euro-Atlantic perspective of Kosovo unlocked.
According to him, the Association is an international and local legal obligation that Kosovo must begin to fulfill.
"But it is also important to emphasize that this is an obligation that Kosovo has undertaken under the conditions of certain assumptions and political guarantees from Kosovo's partners that Kosovo's international position will be unlocked. Therefore, these two obligations (one of Kosovo, the other of the allies) are interdependent, they cannot be separated from each other and would unlock each other", he wrote.
Maliqi wrote that everything that Kosovo has signed so far does not oblige it to do anything that contradicts its Constitution, as defined in the 2015 agreement and as confirmed by the decision of the Constitutional Court. .
also How to make the Association?He further wrote that if between Kosovo and the partners there is mutual agreement on these two truths - and this seems to be the case - then Kosovo should not be afraid to start the process of establishing the Association and undo some from the political myths associated with it.
According to him, the Association should be acceptable if it fulfills four principles.
He said that the first principle is that this cannot be a new level of executive power, but only facilitating and supporting the existing municipal and central functions.
"Services that currently function informally, such as health and education, should be integrated into the existing municipal and central frameworks. Other services, such as social benefits or pensions, Serbia would be free to provide to its citizens, given that Serbs have dual citizenship. The association may have the freedom to implement its activities in 'soft' sectors such as culture or humanitarian work, but it should not have any powers over 'heavy' sectors such as security", he wrote.
According to him, the second principle is that the Association should reflect the multi-ethnic and unitary premises of the state that exist at the central level.
He said that the Association's statute should apply the same rules that exist at the central level in the Constitution for the protection of non-majority communities.
"For example, the structures of the Association (including the decision-making ones) should have guaranteed representation for non-majority communities from these municipalities, while in decision-making on issues of vital interest there should be a need for a double majority (2/3) of the communities non-majority living in these municipalities", she said.
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Maliqi said that the third principle is that the Association should not be territorially concentrated in the north but should be spread throughout Kosovo.
"This would produce an essential balance between local governance and the unitary nature of the state, while it would primarily serve the interests of all Kosovo Serbs and not Belgrade," he said.
According to him, the fourth principle is that the stability of the Association depends on the spirit of good neighborly relations.
"For this reason, the same level of municipal cooperation and facilitation of services between Kosovo and the Albanian community in the Presheva Valley should be allowed, especially in areas such as education, culture and economy," he added.
Maliqi has said that if these principles are not fulfilled - that is, if the Association is envisioned as a new level of government, as some of the Serbian List are demanding, if it does not reflect the same multi-ethnic principles as those of the Constitution. He added that if he is concentrated in the north and if there is no mutual respect for the rights of minorities in the region, then Kosovo will face a situation where the need for a fifth principle will be created.
"There is an impression in Kosovo that the Association will become a Republika Srpska. What risks producing a Republika Srpska in Kosovo is not the powers of the Association as such, but their combination with the rights that originate from the Ahtisaari Package. The latter offered Kosovo Serbs the right to veto over the majority of the population and at the same time a high level of municipal decentralization. If a new level of governance is added to this, this would mean that the Serbian minority in Kosovo would live completely independently, and would have veto power over the majority! This is not only a racist design of the state, but it would produce a dysfunctional state, make inter-ethnic relations even more toxic, and destabilize peace in the region even more," he said.
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According to him, any kind of request addressed to Kosovo to exceed the Constitution and the principles mentioned here, would mean acceptance by the international community that the Ahtisarian model of solving the rights of minorities has failed.
"Which brings me to the fifth principle. If Kosovo Serbs demand a model of ethnic segregation and self-governance, then this gives Kosovo the right to demand changes in the rights that non-majority communities have at the central level - namely, the removal of minority veto power, guaranteed representation at the central level, but also the general multi-ethnic nature of the state (symbols, bilingualism, etc.) This path leads us to a completely different way of solving minority rights and a new model of the state, with all the other implications that this brings. Therefore, maybe it is a path that should be better avoided", he said.
