​Kosovo Prosecution Sues Power Plants’ Austrian Manager for Damages

The Basic Prosecution in Peja/ Pec on Friday said that it had filed a lawsuit against Kelkos Energy, the Austrian company operating hydropower plants in Decan/ Glogovac, in the district of Gjakova/ Djakovica, for damages caused by the plant pipeline. The prosecution said Kelkos Energy had caused "general danger". 

The prosecution said that on April 30, 2020, a segment of three kilometres of highway, ready to be asphalted, for the Decan-Plava highway connecting Kosovo to Montenegro, was badly damaged.

This was "a result of the water flow from the canal (pipeline) which serves for the circulation and collection of water and its delivery for the supply of the hydropower plants administered and managed by LLC Kelkos Energy - and as a result of the rapid flow of water, the whole soil collapsed". 

The prosecution says the collapse of the road caused "material damage to the road contractor, the injured party, LLC Lika Trade".

Kelkos Energy has regularly been in the headlines due to civil society activists claiming that its three hydro-power plants in the Decan Valley are operating illegally. 

Civil society groups and local residents say Kelkos Energy has violated Kosovo laws limiting how much of a river's water can be diverted for hydropower.

They have been protesting against the company since 2019, when it was reported that the plants' licenses had expired five years before. 

The activists' first win was in July 2020, when the river water flow was returned to one of the branches of the Lumbardhi river in Decan/ Glogovac, a few kilometres from a plant owned by KelKos Energy. The riverbed had been an empty pile of rocks for the five years of the plant's operation. 

Kosovo's Energy Regulatory Office, ERO, banned the...