After the contested registration plates, it is now the question of banning the use of the Serbian dinar which is reviving tensions between the Serb minority in Kosovo and the Kosovars.
Thousands of Serbs from Kosovo’s Serbian minority protested in Mitrovica on Monday against a ban on the use of Serbian currency in the areas where they live, an issue that has been at the root of the latest crisis in relations between Serbia and Kosovo.
Tensions escalated after the government of Kosovo, a former Serbian province, banned banks and other financial institutions in Serb-populated areas from using the dinar in local transactions, starting February 1, and imposed.. . the euro.
The dinar was widely used in areas with an ethnic Serb majority, particularly in northern Kosovo, to pay pensions and salaries of staff at Serb-run institutions, including schools and hospitals.
This ban angered the residents concerned. The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo clashed over the issue during a meeting last week at the United Nations Security Council.
Protesters said the abolition of the dinar violated the rights of Kosovo Serbs and was discriminatory. They urged the international community to put pressure on the Kosovo government to reverse this decision.
In Pristina, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti rejected these criticisms in a message addressed to Kosovo Serbs. He insisted that the new measure aims to curb illegal financial flows and “does not prevent Serbia from financially assisting citizens of the Kosovo Serb community”.
“Kosovo has not stopped the dinar, nor the dollar, nor the pound sterling, nor the Swiss franc,” said Albin Kurti. “The only change from February 1 is that cash cannot cross the border in bags… but must go through bank accounts and (be) withdrawn in euros.”
The European Union and the United States have expressed concern that Kosovo’s dinar ban could increase tensions in an already unstable region and called for consultations and a postponement of the ban.