Status: 11/17/2022 11:58 a.m
After Serbian police officers left the service in protest against the new license plate regulation, EU police officers are now being deployed in northern Kosovo. Cars belonging to Serbs living there are said to have Kosovar license plates.
Amid the tensions surrounding a new license plate regulation by the Kosovan government, 135 police officers from the EU mission Eulex have gone to the mainly Serb-inhabited north of Kosovo. This was explained by the head of the mission, the Swede Lars-Gunnar Wigemark, to the Kosovar-Serbian news portal Kossev.info.
The European officers would also patrol on foot, filling the security gap created by the resignation of Serb police officers in northern Kosovo to protest the license plate regulation. “But we cannot take over the job of the Kosovo police and replace them,” Wigemark added, according to the portal.
Kosovan government does not tolerate Serbian license plates
Kosovo, which used to belong to Serbia and has been independent since 2008, is now almost exclusively inhabited by Albanians. However, mainly ethnic Serbs live in the north of the divided city of Mitrovica and three surrounding rural communities.
The license plate regulation of the government in Pristina, which has been in force since the beginning of November, prohibits the Serbs in the north from continuing to use the license plates and vehicle documents issued by neighboring Serbia. According to the regulation, these are to be exchanged for Kosovan license plates and papers. Currently, drivers with Serbian license plates are only warned. From next week, however, fines should be able to be imposed.
A motorist removes stickers that covered the national markings on his Serbian car.
Image: EPA
Gangs burn unregistered vehicles
Serbia has never recognized Kosovo’s independence, claims its territory as its own, and openly supports those Kosovo Serbs who resist the Kosovar government’s sovereignty. This also includes criminal gangs who, for example, set fire to the cars of the few Kosovo Serbs who have re-registered their vehicles.