Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia will ask the EU to put pressure on Kosovo authorities to revoke hiked up tariffs that Pristina introduced last month for imports from these two countries, trade ministers of the two countries agreed on Tuesday.
EU-Kosovo Stabilisation and Association Council, which is to discuss the state of relations between the EU and Kosovo, is set to meet on December 12, and this is the last chance for the EU to ask Pristina to urgently revoke the tariffs, Bosnia’s Trade Minister Mirko Sarovic and his Serbia’s counterpart Rasim Ljajic said.
Otherwise, they added, it will be necessary to ask for a suspension of the EU-Kosovo Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), a document that EU aspiring countries sign at the initial stage of their accession process.
The 100 percent customs duties that Kosovo authorities introduced last month on imports from Bosnia and Serbia have sparked strong reactions in these two countries, whose officials said the new taxes openly violated the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), a free trade association that all the countries in the region take part in.
Ministers Sarovic and Ljajic warned that the taxes did not only violate CEFTA rules, but they also infringed on the “fundamental human rights and freedoms, most of all the right to free movement of people, goods, and capital, as well as the right to medical treatment.”
Due to the tariffs, Bosnia’s and Serbia’s trade with Pristina was practically disabled, the ministers said, expressing concern over what has been so far a lukewarm reaction of the international community.
Ljajic and Sarovic agreed to coordinate their further steps and activities at international institutions in order to “get Pristina’s discriminatory measures revoked as soon as possible.”
Pristina introduced the tariffs a day after the two countries, which never recognised Kosovo’s independence, voted against Kosovo’s membership in Interpol. Pristina authorities did not officially link the decision to the vote but accused Serbia of conducting “a wild campaign” against Kosovo membership.
While Bosnia’s export to Kosovo amounted about €80 million during 2017, according to the CEFTA official statistics, Serbia was a significant trade partner which exported the goods in the amount of €440 million, which was 14 percent of its overall export for that year.
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