UNMIK/PR/508
PRISTINA--- The Council of JIAS Co-heads were today briefed on the proposed handing over of power from the regional structures to the municipalities in Kosovo. The DSRSG, Mr. Tom Koenigs, said it was a goal to eventually decentralise as much authority as possible towards the municipalities, and that Kosovo is not such a big territory to justify a regional governmental level in addition to a municipal and central level.
The plan ahead would be to transfer all functions carried out by regional departmental officers to the municipal level, along with the budgetary and financial responsibilities for programming. The area of reconstruction will also be taken over by the municipalities in conjunction with the EU pillar. The co-ordination of returns will remain on the regional level, as well as security co-ordination and oversight with UNMIK staff.
The transfer of authority was also the main point when SRSG Hans Haekkerup addressed the Council. He presented some of his thoughts on the development of a legal framework for a provisional self-government in Kosovo. The SRSG said that he would establish a committee on the legal framework, which would start working as soon as early March. Mr. Haekkerup said the committee will be made up of members from the different communities within Kosovo, along with representatives from the international community with relevant experience from cases like Rambouillet and Dayton.
Ms. Karin Rudebeck, from the JIAS Department for Local Administration, informed the Council on the goals accomplished and the challenges ahead. She said there has been considerable progress since the municipal elections, with large parts of the administration in place all over Kosovo. She stressed the need for political factions to compromise in order to move the progress one further step. She also warned of a trend of attempts to politicise appointments to the civil service rather than to allow professional considerations take primacy.
The fourth subject on the agenda was the development of a labour law, where Randjel Nojkic and Jacques Gaude, from the JIAS Department from Labour and Employment, emphasised the need for such a regulation. They said that approximately 200,000 workers in Kosovo were without any legal rights, and that the old Yugoslav law was based on a non-market economy and therefore not useful in the present situation. The need for future revenue also required legally approved earnings, and a labour law would be essential to create indigenously driven investments. They said a draft recommendation is ready, and can later be the basis for an UNMIK regulation with legal binding force.