Kosovo Serbs to Go Ahead With Referendum

Krstimir Pantic, mayor of the divided city of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo, announced on Monday that a vote will be held in mainly Serb areas on February 14 and 15 to ask local people whether they wish to acknowledge Kosovo government institutions.

Local Serbs announced the referendum plan in December but it was not backed by Belgrade, which saw it as unnecessarily controversial and likely to irritate the EU.

Brussels has made it clear it wants to see the political temperature drop in the breakaway Serb-run north.

To prevent the referendum from being held, Goran Bogdanovic, Serbian Minister for Kosovo, gathered the mayors of Kosovo Serb municipalities in Belgrade last week to try to persuade them to postpone the vote.

Kosovo Serb leaders then pledged to meet party whips in municipal assembies in northern Kosovo in order to test the mood on postponing the announced referendum.

According to Pantic, the parties whips agreed that there was no reason to postpone it given that Jelko Kacin, European Rapporteur for Serbia, said that referendum will not in any way jeopardize Serbia's EU candidacy.  

"All the mayors reiterated in talks with Minister Bogdanovic last week that if anyone proves to us that the referendum will be harmful to state and national interests we are willing to postpone it. Since we have not been provided any indication of this, the referendum will be held as planned," Pantic told reporters on Monday.