Kosovo initiates 100% tariff on
Serb imports, also on products from Bosnia and Herzegovina, which do not
recognize Kosovo as a country.
By Blerta Begisholli
PRISTINA -- Shops, bakeries, gas
stations, hairdressers, pharmacies, fast food shops and all other local
businesses closed on Monday in the northern Serb-led municipalities of Kosovo,
protesting against the 100-per-cent tariff that the government has imposed on
imports from Serbia.
Many local businesses at first ignored the new
tax, arranging their supplies from Serbian producers through alternative
channels – until end of May, when police arrested more than 20 local Serbian
policemen and accused them of assisting smuggling and organised crime, Kossev portal wrote on Monday.
“The common attitude of
businessmen from the north of Kosovo is that all shops are closed in solidarity
with colleagues who provide citizens with foodstuffs and who are most severely
affected by the charges [imposed] from Prishtina,” Rados Petrovic, president of
the Association of Businessmen from the North of Kosovo, told N1 media outlet
in Serbia.
“The taxes on Serbian goods
make it impossible for our businesses to function normally, and we demand that
they are abolished,” he added.
Businesses are refusing to
take alternative supplies from the Bosniak neighbourhood of the northern part
of the divided town of Mitrovica, or from shops in the government-controlled
south of Mitrovica.
Prime Minister Ramush
Haradinaj and Foreign Minister Behxhet Pacolli last week accused some in the
north of the country of trying to foment a “humanitarian crisis”.
“Different Serbian actors,
traders and officials from the North of Mitrovica, in cooperation with
officials from Belgrade, are coordinating a humanitarian crisis,” Ramush Haradinaj was quoted as saying on June 25. According to
him, pressure was being put on Kosovo to close its eyes to contraband.
“We
will object to this propaganda that intends to create tensions and incidents in
the North of Kosovo. There has been no humanitarian crisis since 1999 when the
Serbian forces left Kosovo and there will never be such a crisis,” Foreign
Minister Pacolli wrote on Facebook.
“In
the north of Kosovo, there are enough products and medicine. I invite the
international community to monitor this attempt by Serbia to destabilize Kosovo
and punish it,” he added.
The
government first import a lower import tariff and then hiked it in November
last year to 100 per cent in retaliation for Serbia’s lobbying against Kosovo’s
accession to Interpol and other international organisations.
It
has also been applied to products from Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, like
Serbia, does not recognise Kosovo as an independent state.
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