Threat from the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić about flow displacement Ibra it followed the demolition of Serb-owned buildings on the coast Gazivodsko Lake.
"We have already invited the experts who deal with it, the construction sector, engineers and others, when they are already harassing our people so much, let's see... We have different reasons for changing the Ibar watercourse, so we will see what the Albanians will do and how they will behave," Vučić told reporters during a tour of the works on the Old Railway Bridge in Belgrade.
What would "twisting" the Ibar bring to anyone, is it technically feasible and what consequences would it have for water management, energy and the local population in Kosovo?
Is this a realistic engineering endeavor?
In the area of Kosovo and Metohija, the Ibar was blocked by a dam, which created the artificial lake Gazivode, one of the key infrastructure and energy hubs in that area. The hydroelectric plant on the lake supplies electricity to a significant part of Kosovo, and the Ibar-Lepenac water system provides water for the local population.
The idea of "moving" Ibar is not new. The president mentioned it threateningly in 2024 as well, but then he distanced himself from it because he did not want "nature to be used for political needs", i.e. he got the ducks from the West.
Today, he seems to have no problem with that - again verbally - to emphasize again what Serbia could do to the Albanian "temporary authorities" in Pristina, if only it wanted to.
Photo: Tanjug/Dimitrije GollLake Gazivode in Kosovo
What would we get by changing the Ibar watercourse?
Civil engineer and professor at the Faculty of Civil Engineering Jovan Despotović tells "Vreme" - "nothing".
"That would be absolutely inadmissible from the point of view of the water law of the European Union at the level of the Danube basin, to which the Ibar belongs. It has nothing to do with common sense. Whatever can be said is little, as it is nonsense in the hydrotechnical or water management sense," says Despotović.
He adds that it is an unimaginable engineering undertaking, and that he believes that the president said it "metaphorically", that it is a matter of spite due to the current political situation.
The decision to move the watercourse of the river would inevitably affect the entire local population in Kosovo, not only the Albanians.
The professor says that there can be many more important and larger projects in Serbia, which can bring real improvement in the energy and water sector.
"The management of water resources in Serbia, planning studies, is much more important and more important. If we were not the way we are, we would have made a plan for this situation when there is no water in the Danube. We are starting this for the sixteenth time. The Faculty of Civil Engineering did the first phase four years ago, but never the second and third. So, the planning study is a plan on how to spend the resources at your disposal. For example, you receive your salary today and you see fantastic shoes and the whole salary is spent on them. And tomorrow you tell your father and to my mother, 'give me money for bread.'
Where is international law in this story?
"No one on earth would allow the displacement of the Ibar," says Professor Despotović.
Obstacles to this endeavor are not only technical, but also legal.
The Ibar rises in Montenegro, flows through central Serbia, and then enters Kosovo. Both Serbia and Montenegro are contracting parties to the UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses, which obliges states to use water in a reasonable manner and cooperate with each other.
The change in the water course of the Ibar would also depend on where the intervention would be carried out, how much it would change the flow and what consequences it would produce downstream. Vučić did not present those details.
Photo: Tanjug/ Zoran ŽestićFishermen on Lake Gazivode
One of the first official reactions from Pristina to the announcement of the President of Serbia about this project came from the Acting Minister of Environment, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure, Fitora Pacoli.
She assessed Vučić's statements as "deeply worrying and unacceptable", saying that water resources cannot be used as "an instrument of threat, pressure or destabilization".
She stated that Kosovo "protects its water resources, critical infrastructure and the interests of its citizens, in accordance with the Constitution, the laws of the Republic of Kosovo and the principles of international law".
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