The Serbian daily "Novosti" yesterday (September 30) published an article claiming once again the existence of a European Union (EU) initiative in the service of building a statute for the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities in Kosovo (AKS).
This medium, in the electronic edition "Novosti.rs", has published this article in a series of publications made in recent days with the claim that the German foundation "Friedrich Ebert Stiftung" (FES) and the "European Institute for Peace" (EIP) are drafting the statute of the Association of Serb-majority municipalities, which was covered by hibrid.info. (here)
Link to the article published in "Novosti":
Parts of the article published in "Novosti":
The authors of the document, apparently, generously, in 19 pages, have respected everything that the Brussels Agreement, signed in 2013, provides. However, although at first glance it may seem that the authors of the Draft Statute of the AKS have shown themselves generous towards the Serbs. , the very wording “in accordance with the laws and the Constitution of Kosovo” may make all solutions meaningless in practice.
"Such a drafted text of the draft statute of the Association gives Serbs from northern Kosovo everything that was previously agreed upon, but only on paper. Because if after nine years that Kosovo rejected the formation of the Association and broke the agreements with the decisions of the Constitutional Court (which has already declared that the formation of the Association is not in accordance with the highest legal act of the country), and the EU as the guarantor of all agreements is constantly silent, can it guarantee that the government of Albin Kurti or any other government will not change their laws and will not make constitutional decisions as they want and thus block the work of the Association?"
According to the claims of the Serbian newspaper "Novosti", the German Foundation "Friedrich Ebert Stiftung" (FES) and the "European Institute for Peace" (EIP), offices in Belgrade, have been entrusted with the task of drafting the "Statute of the Association of Serbian Municipalities" (AKS), which in the revised version, with comments from Serbian and Albanian non-governmental organizations from Kosovo, as stated in the article, should end up on the table of Miroslav Lajcak, the European Union's special envoy for the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, but which should also be offered to the governments in Pristina and Belgrade.
However, the claim made by the Serbian media outlet turns out to be incorrect. The parties that, according to the outlet, are involved in drafting this statute have denied the claim made in the article.
The two institutes (FES and EIP), in a joint statement, said that they had not received a request or mandate from the EU Special Representative, Miroslav Lajcak, the German government or any other party to draft this statute, but that their discussions were for internal use only. (here)
This newspaper writes that the two institutes organized a public discussion at the Aeroclub in Belgrade, which was attended by representatives of Serbian and Albanian NGOs from Kosovo, as well as international missions and German diplomats. According to the newspaper, at that meeting, a draft of the future statute of the AKS was presented, for which suggestions and objections were made.
The presence of German diplomats and members of international missions has also been denied by the Serbian media outlet "Danas", based on information obtained during the meeting, which also highlights the fact that no official proposal for the draft statute of the AKS has been prepared. (here)
"Media claims that the EU has delegated any issue from the dialogue area (Belgrade and Pristina) to other entities are absolutely incorrect and malicious. This is particularly related to the topic of the Union of Serbian Municipalities.", said Stano, adding that ""The agreements from the dialogue make it clear that the drafting of the Statute will be carried out by a management team composed of Kosovo Serbs and appointed by the Government of Kosovo.".
Stano also specified that the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina “remains an EU-led process and supported by the international community.” (here)
FES Permanent Representative in Pristina, Rene Schlee, emphasized the fact that FES and EIP develop joint projects for the normalization of Kosovo-Serbia relations. "
The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung works on several aspects of political dialogue. One of them is Peace and Security. In that area, the office in Pristina and the European Institute for Peace are developing a joint project examining various issues within the framework of the normalization process. The last round of discussion was to deal with the issue of the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities.”system. (here)
The Director of the Regional Office for Serbia and Montenegro, Kirsten Schenefeld, reiterated that the Foundation and the Institute have not received any request or mandate from the EU Special Representative, Lajcak, the German government or any other party to draft the statute of the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities. Schenefeld also recalled the statement issued jointly with the EIP, in which they emphasize that their discussions were internal, that they used publicly available information on topics of public interest, which are the prerogative of civil society. (here)
Analyze:
The Serbian daily "Novosti" has claimed that the German FES foundation and the European EIP institute have been engaged by the EU to draft the statute of the Association of Serbian Municipalities (AKS).
EU representatives have denied the claim of the two organizations' involvement in drafting the AKS statute.
Even representatives of the aforementioned organizations have denied that they were asked for such a commitment by the EU, the German government or any other party, and that the discussion of this topic was internal with public data.
Hibrid.info, based on its work methodology, assesses that the claims made are classified as "Disinformation".
Rating:
A “Disinformation” rating is given to media reporting that contains a “mix” of inaccurate sources or even half-truthful content. This rating will also address reports that have incorrect attributions or headlines that do not reflect the text in terms of information accuracy.