Kosovo bans Serbian vote on constitutional modifications on its soil | Information

Serbia will maintain a referendum on Sunday on amendments to the structure that might change how judges and prosecutors are elected.

Kosovo’s Parliament has handed a decision banning ethnic Serbs from voting on Kosovan soil in Serbia’s nationwide referendum on constitutional amendments.

Serbia will maintain a referendum on Sunday on amendments to the structure that might change how judges and prosecutors are elected, a transfer the federal government says is geared toward securing an unbiased judiciary, a situation for European Union membership.

Kosovo’s independence backers – the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy and the EU mission – urged Prime Minister Albin Kurti to permit Serbs in Kosovo to vote within the referendum.

However in a unprecedented session on Saturday, 76 out of 120 deputies voted in favour of a declaration banning Serbia from opening polling centres in Kosovo.

Kurti advised Parliament that establishing polling stations in majority Serb areas of Kosovo could be towards the structure, and that ethnic Serbs might vote by mail or in Belgrade’s authorities liaison workplace in Pristina.

“Kosovo is an unbiased and sovereign state and needs to be handled as such,” Kurti stated.

Serbia, which nonetheless considers Kosovo a part of its territory, has been organising elections for ethnic Serbs because the Kosovo Conflict led to 1999.

Serbia refuses to recognise Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence however has pledged to normalise relations with its former breakaway province earlier than becoming a member of the EU.

The top of the Serbian Workplace for Cooperation with Kosovo stated the ban was geared toward “annulling political and civic rights of Serbs [in Kosovo].”

“Kurti and his extremists shouldn’t assume that sooner or later they are going to reach banning Serbs in Kosovo from voting, notably in April 3 elections,” Petar Petkovic stated in a press release.

Serbia is holding presidential and parliamentary elections on April 3.

Early on Saturday, Kosovo police confiscated two vehicles of the Serbian election fee transporting poll papers as they crossed the border at Merdare to go in the direction of Serb-majority areas.

“We name on the Kosovo authorities to permit Serbs in Kosovo to train their proper to vote in elections and electoral processes in accordance with this established follow,” Germany, France, Italy, UK, US and the EU stated of their joint assertion on Friday.