Kosovo Delays Action to Avert Coal Shortage

The Kosovo government announced on Wednesday that a decision to expropriate eight houses in the village of Shipitulla in central-eastern Kosovo will be taken on August 11, after the Kosovo Energy Corporation, KEK failed to fully complete the resettlement of residents in order to start digging coal there.

Over 100 people illegally built houses in the area in order to benefit from compensation after the KEK announced that it wanted the residents' land.

The KEK needs the land because other mining areas have been exhausted and Shipitulla remains a coal field that the Corporation could use.

Reuters reported on July 27 that "Kosovo is on the verge of an energy collapse with its power corporation holding only two-weeks worth of coal reserves".

"The problem is there for all to see in the village of Shipitulle where large and rusted excavators, resembling Transformers, stand idle. They can't get to the coal, even though there is lots of it," Reuters said in its report.

The villages of Shipitulla and Hade have identified by the authorities as 'areas of interest' for coal mining since 2004.

The KEK chose Shipitulla, which did not have so many houses - but between 2010 and 2015, more than 100 homes were built in the area, all illegally.

When the KEK first announced the expropriation, there were 99 houses in Shipitulla.

Some 120 further houses were built in the area over the subsequent three years. No state institutions prevented the constructions.

The executive director of the KEK, Abern Gjukaj, said in a letter on June 29 to the mayor of the Obilic municipality, in which Shipitulla is located, that the expropriation of eight houses would enable the KEK to operate for two more months.

Gjukaj added that if these...