Lucic: Response to Telekom Srbija appeal due in 15 days

LEPOSAVIC - Telekom Srbija CEO Vladimir Lucic said the company had been informed by the so-called Kosovo's business registration agency on Friday that its appeal following the agency's decision to ban the operations of MTS doo - a Telekom Srbija daughter company in Kosovo-Metohija - was due in 15 days, and expressed the confidence the appeal would be accepted.

"A two-week battle for the survival of MTS is ahead of us. I am fully confident we will survive as a company because this was an attempt to shut down our company here in an absurd, unlawful way," Lucic said in Leposavic, Kosovo-Metohija, after Telekom Srbija donated an interactive whiteboard to a local primary school.

He noted a decision to erase MTS doo from the business register was not only a violation of the Brussels Agreement but also an absurd breach of the Pristina administration's own laws.

"I think the international community is also facing a test here because, if someone wants to shut down a Serbian company in that way, violating not only agreements but their own laws as well, then how can they be trusted, at any meeting, to comply with the articles of any agreements at all?" Lucic said.

He noted that, for that reason, he was "fully confident the Pristina administration will eventually realise the seriousness of the move and accept the appeal" and added that shutting down the company would be "a kind of a serious escalation."

He explained that 30,000 Serb households in Kosovo-Metohija were subscribed to MTS internet, mobile telephony and television services and that shutting down the company would leave them without communication and access to Serbian television channels.

In early August, the agency ordered that MTS doo be erased from the register due to documentation with "unconstitutional content."