Since the licence plate crisis erupted, Kosovo’s Prime Minister has become sandwiched between criticism coming from all sides, both at home and abroad.
Kosovo’s Prime Minister has endured an eventful few weeks, with criticism coming from all over the place, both home and abroad – until he agreed to withdraw from his plans to penalize users of Serbia-issued licence plates in Kosovo’s volatile ethnic Serbian northern municipalities.
The dispute about banning Serbian-issued licence plates triggered mass resignations of Kosovo Serbs from institutions in Serb-majority municipalities in the north, including mayors, municipal councilors, judges, prosecutors, police and customs officers at the beginning of November, in an attempt to force Kurti to withdraw his plans to make local Serbs exchange licence plates issued by Serbia for Kosovo-issued ones.
After Kurti and Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic met for a marathon meeting on November 21 in Brussels, the European High Representative, Josep Borrell, mostly blamed Kurti for the failure to reach an agreement. “We put forward a proposal that President Vucic accepted today while Prime Minister Kurti did not,” Borrell said.