Stano: Status of public and social services must be addressed within dialogue

BRUSSELS - Commenting on a recent arrest of a Serb school principal in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metohija, EU spokesperson Peter Stano said on Friday the issue of the status and transition of some basic public and social services must be addressed within the framework of the Brussels dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, in parallel with the establishment of a Community of Serb Municipalities.

"Unilateral actions restricting access to these services - health care or education - would have negative effects on the daily lives of people and the living conditions of the Kosovo Serb community and other communities, and this would be falling short of Kosovo's European integration obligations," Stano told a Brussels press briefing.

Asked by Tanjug's correspondent about the EU's position on the arrest of the principal of a Gojbulja primary school and a seizure of its official seals, Stano said the EU was following developments.

"I can only recall that the European Union has always been very, very clear that the status and transition of some Serbia-supported basic public and social services, particularly health care and the school system and education, must be addressed in the EU-facilitated dialogue in parallel with the establishment of the Association of the Serb-Majority Municipalities in Kosovo. It is a legal obligation for the authorities in Kosovo," Stano noted.

Asked by another reporter whether measures against Pristina would be lifted before the new European Commission took over, Stano said EU member states were considering the issue and that a decision would be made irrespective of the date on which the current EU institutions' term was to expire.

Asked if a continuation of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue was possible in the wake of a Serbian bill on judicial jurisdiction in Kosovo-Metohija, Stano said the EU would be facilitating the dialogue as long as both sides were a part of it.

"The parties will be in the dialogue for as long as they are interested in the accession process because, since last year, when there was an agreement reached in Ohrid, the parties agreed, or the parties accepted, that progress on the dialogue is linked to the progress in the accession process, so if there is no dialogue, there is no accession process," he said.

"The dialogue facilitated by the EU started based on the need and the willingness of both parties to find an agreement with the help of the European Union. This is something the European Union has not imposed on the parties," he said.

The head of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija Petar Petkovic said on Thursday Pristina's PM Albin Kurti had begun closing down Serb schools in Kosovo-Metohija with the aim of expelling the Serbs from the province, and added that he had informed international representatives of the school principal's arrest.

Speaking to the RTS, Petkovic said the principal had been stopped by the so-called Kosovo Police at the Brnjak administrative crossing and taken to a police station in the south of Kosovska Mitrovica following interrogation.

"The reason was that the school's seals had been found in his car," Petkovic said.