The Government of Kosovo has unveiled a plan for the issue of license plates issued by Serbia, which will be implemented in several stages. The plan envisages that from April 21 of the next year, all license plates that are not RKS – Republic of Kosovo will be “removed”.
“For three weeks, starting from November 1 to November 21, the measure will be reprimand. Then, from November 21, for two months until January 21, there will be a fine measure, and then from January 21 we will have trial plates for another two months, after which date, on April 21 there can be no because there is no other license plates can be allowed in the Republic of Kosovo”, said the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti during the Government meeting held on October 28.
After this decision of the Government of Kosovo, the head of the office for Kosovo in the Serbian Government, Petar Petkovic, reacted, describing it as a “fraud”.
“Any kind of crisis and tension in Kosovo and Metohija was avoided only thanks to the prudent and responsible behavior of our people there and the president [of Serbia, Aleksandar] Vučić, therefore there is no submission to the deception that Kurti and [Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, Besnik ]Bislimi are trying to do, through this decision, believing that they are ready to compromise. Because everything they do, they do it within the long-term goal of expelling the Serbian people from Kosovo, and Belgrade will not allow this,” he said.
The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, said that citizens in the north will be able to benefit from tax benefits until March 31 after re-registering their cars in the RKS. Asked if this decision means postponement of the deadline for license plates, he said that Kosovo has not postponed the implementation of the decision, but “we have escalated and sequenced it”.
Kurti repeated that license plates with Serbian acronyms for the cities of Kosovo are illegal.
The deadline for re-registration of cars with license plates issued by Serbia expires on October 31 and the Government said that with this new decision it is showing seriousness to implement the decision it has made, but “at the same time to give a chance to those who are interested in integrating”.
The head of the Government of Kosovo said that he also informed the representatives of QUINT, with whom he talked before the meeting of the Government, about the new plan for license plates. Although he said that they initially asked him to postpone the deadline for re-registration, after hearing about the new decision, they said that they will express their opinion after consulting with their headquarters.
QUINT countries include the United States, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and France.
The United States and the European Union have requested that Kosovo postpone the deadline for license plates for ten months.
