Bekim Collaku

The speaker of Kosovo Parliament, Kadri Veseli, met EU ambassadors and the head of the European Union Office in Pristina, Natalya Apostolova, to discuss main points in parliament's work in 2017.

Kosovo has now been without a Minister of European Integration since September 2016 when the former incumbent, Bekim Collaku, resigned to join the president's office, and the ruling coalition has still not decided who should be appointed to replace him.

Kosovo's parliament ratified the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) on Monday with 86 of the legislature's 120 MPs voting in favour.

Prime Minister Isa Mustafa said the SAA would contribute to further strengthening the country's rule of law as well as its economy.

Kosovo on Oct. 27 signed a stabilization and association agreement with the European Union, a milestone expected to promote economic growth in one of Europe's poorest countries.

Kosovo signed its first contractual agreement with the EU on Tuesday in Strasbourg.

The Stabilisation and Association Agreement, SAA, was signed on behalf of Kosovo by Prime Minister Isa Mustafa and on behalf of the EU by Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Kosovo's Minister of European Integration, Bekim Collaku, on Wednesday said the government would sign a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, SAA, with the EU next week. "The signing will take place next week on October 27th 2015 in Strasbourg," he said.

Bekim Collaku, Kosovo's Minister of European Integration, said the European Commission had adopted a Stabilization and Association Agreement, SAA, proposal with Kosovo  on Thursday and sent it for approval to the Council of European Union.

"We welcome such a decision, which brings Kosovo closer to signing an SAA and closer to EU integration," Collaku told BIRN.

Kosovo's National Council for European Integration has warned that illegal migration of Kosovars to the EU rose steeply last year.  

Around 20,000 Kosovars are thought to have left Kosovo in 2014 with the aim of illegally crossing the Serbian-Hungarian border to reach the EU.

Bekim Collaku, political adviser to Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, said that Serbia was to blame for the delay in integrating the judicial authorities in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo into Pristina’s system – a commitment made by Belgrade under the EU-brokered deal to normalise relations signed in April 2013.

Serbia's Electoral Commisssion, RIK, told BIRN that early parliamentary elections due on March 16 will be organized also in the former province of Kosovo.

"There will be three members of the committee at each polling station in Kosovo and ballots will be taken for counting at voting centres in Vranje and Raska [in Serbia]," the RIK said.