London: Serbia’s PM calls on Kosovo counterpart to lift tariffs

Tanjug

Serbia’s Prime Minister Ana Brnabic asked her Kosovo’s colleague Albin Kurti, at the Summit in London attended by Western Balkans prime ministers, to revoke the decision on the 100 percent import tariffs on goods from Serbia and Bosnia and called for making the regional trade easier and create a favourable business environment, the state RTS TV and news agencies reported on Monday.

During their first meeting, Kurti replied he wanted to work on relations with Belgrade, reiterated he would replace the taxes with reciprocity.

“We want to replace the taxes with reciprocity, not as a revenge, but because we feel discriminated and want equality,” Kurti said.

The President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Suma Chakrabarti, told the Summit that the Bank, “a global institution with the European heart,” invested into the Western Balkans region more than 13 billion Euros.

State television RTS said that half of the sum was invested in Serbia.

EBRD realised 600 projects in the Balkans’ infrastructure, energy, entrepreneurship and agriculture, adding the Bank wanted the region to succeed and to be more powerful for the benefit of all its people.

Brnabic told the Summit that the priority was the investment into infrastructure which would connect the region and to implement the so-called ‘mini-Schengen.’ She added that the ‘mini-Schengen’ would mean four freedoms in the Western Balkans – free movements of goods, services, capital and people,” her cabinet said in a statement.