The US envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, said, interview for Radio Free Europe, that he failed to convince the prime minister of the temporary institutions of Pristina, Aljbin Kurti, to respond to the West's concerns regarding the ban on the use of dinars in Kosovo.
Gabriel Escobar points out that all ethnic communities in Kosovo must feel safe and live in safe and dignified conditions.
What is happening now with the decision of the central bank is that there are a large number of your citizens who feel a lot of pain. These are people who receive modest salaries, we are talking about people with special needs, pensioners, students, the most vulnerable people. And this decision affected them very deeply. The government stated that they have a lot of options, but the government did not provide them with options. The government said that they are responsible to do it, and it is difficult for many people," said Escobar.
He added that "some of the older people do not have the right documents, the documents of some younger people are not accepted, some banks state that it takes about an hour on average to open an account, and not all of them have open accounts."
"What is good is that the Prime Minister (Kurti) recognized that there are people who are suffering. But that is not enough. We need a solution. That's why I asked the Prime Minister to suspend the decision while we, together with the European Union, that is, the USA and Kosovo, work on a long-term solution that would meet your needs. This means electronic transfers in euros through the Kosovo system. But now, we have to do something urgent. "Unfortunately, I didn't manage to oblige him," says Escobar.
When asked if that is Kurti's answer today, Escobar says yes.
"There are some people outside who believe that this was done to punish the Serbs"
"What I still hope for is that when the main negotiators meet in Brussels on Tuesday, they will find an immediate solution to allow cash transfers in euros to those people," Escobar said.
The US special envoy stated that Kurti told him that it was a decision of an independent institution in which he did not want to interfere and that it was an inconvenience for the people "that can easily be overcome or replaced by payments from the Kosovo government".
"But none of that will happen quickly." That's why we request the suspension of the application of that decision. Normally, the central bank and the finance ministry do their best not to create instability or unpredictability in the economy. And this led to exactly that. Now, there are some people outside who believe that this was done to punish the Serbs. I don't believe in that. But because this Self-Determination government doesn't have a long history of ruling, I believe that sometimes there are people who don't think about the consequences. That's why I characterized her in Brussels as somewhat incompetent," explained Escobar.
He also says that everyone has recognized that there are unwanted consequences.
"They could have been foreseen, and they could have been foreseen if they had been coordinated." Quinta has a lot of experience in converting currencies from one currency to the euro, but it took a long time. "We only had five weeks," adds Escobar.
Answering the question whether the banning of the dinar will be one of the topics at the next meeting of negotiators between Belgrade and Pristina in Brussels, Escobar confirmed that he would.
