Kosovo to End Free Energy Supplies to Serb-Majority Municipalities

Electricity network system operator KOSTT announced on Tuesday that it will no longer supply consumers with power free of charge in four Serb-dominated municipalities of northern Kosovo - Mitrovica North, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic.

The head of KOSTT's board, Jeton Mehmeti, told a parliamentary hearing that an agreement between the company and the Kosovo government to provide 11 million euros to subsidise electricity bills for these municipalities expired this month.

Mehmeti said that since 2017, when KOSTT started subsidising the four municipalities, it has spent more than 17 million euros, while the government contributed an additional 10 million euros.

"If we continue [to pay the municipalities' bills] in December, the company will have a loss of around 10 million euros. If we continue with paying the bills for the next year, then we cannot implement our plans. We will have difficulties operating next year if we do not get the money back," Mehmeti said.

Mimoza Kusari-Lila, an MP from the ruling Vetevendosje party said that "it is a matter of weeks" until consumers in northern start paying their own bills for the first time since the war ended in Kosovo in June 1999.

"Vetevendosje has not agreed to pay for electricity bills in the north. We have given the government a six-month deadline and it is important that the government deals with this issue intensively," Kusari-Lila said.

Last month, Pristina Basic Court said it had annulled a decision by Kosovo's Energy Regulation Office, ERO to pay the electricity bills for consumers from the four Serb-dominated municipalities for a previous period from 2012 to 2017.

Since 2017, electricity bills for consumers from the four municipalities have been paid by the...