Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani announced on Monday that her country has accepted part of a US proposal for the use of the Serbian dinar in the country.
Osmani told the media during a visit to the municipality of Lipljan that there is agreement on part of the proposal, which was presented by the US special envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, when he was in Kosovo last week. However, she emphasised that there is no agreement on the second part. Osmani said:
It is very positive that the international community, led by the US, agrees that there will no longer be dinars in circulation in Kosovo, and with their help, we have achieved that from now on all remittances and financial aid coming from Serbia will be in euros and not in dinars.
She added that the dinar issue should be resolved as soon as possible because it poses a big problem for Kosovo. The President also said that Kosovo is considering ways to ensure that aid sent from Serbia to the Serb community in Kosovo does not fall into the wrong hands. Osmani noted:
Now the second part, for which there is still no agreement, but I am hopeful that we will reach that point very soon, is how we should make sure that any financial aid that comes from Serbia does not go into the hands of people who have abused, that they were corrupt and took the money maybe on behalf of the citizens, but they used it for corruption and organized crime, and for that part, a plan is still being drawn up that will involve the institutions of the Republic of Kosovo, including law enforcement ones.
The country’s central bank announced the decision on 18 January, stating that currencies other than the euro could be used in Kosovo only for physical storage or in bank accounts. Despite the fears of ethnic Serbs living in the north, Kosovo adopted the euro for cash payments on 1 February.
The decision sparked a flurry of outrage because Kosovo’s ethnic Serb communities used the dinar, the official currency of neighbouring Serbia, in both government and commercial transactions.
The two sides will meet in Brussels on Tuesday as part of a dialogue process between Belgrade and Pristina. Escobar meanwhile expressed hope that the Kosovo government would show flexibility at the Brussels meeting.
Western countries, including the US, France, Italy, Germany and the UK, have called on Kosovo to suspend the introduction of currency regulation.
