Maja Ficovic is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Balkan Service.
Unilateral moves by Prime Minister Albin Kurti's government in Kosovo are again angering minority Serbs, risking confrontation with neighboring Serbia, and testing the patience of longtime Western allies.
Ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo have begun signing petitions to dismiss ethnic Albanian mayors in two of four Serb-majority municipalities. The mayors were elected in snap polls in April 2023 amid a boycott of the vote by local Serbs.
Some Serbs in Kosovo are already signaling a reluctant change of heart with regards to a Kosovar passport at the prospect of easily visiting friends and relatives when the EU opens up visa-free travel by January 2024. Others, however, have insisted on keeping the faith in "our country, Serbia."
Low turnout was reported in the extraordinary local elections held in predominantly ethnic Serbian municipalities in northern Kosovo on April 23. Most of the voters in RFE/RL footage from North Mitrovica and Zvecan are local Albanians, due to a boycott by the dominant Kosovo Serb party.
n November 21, Kosovar authorities plan to start fining local motorists up to 150 euros for Serbian license plates that in many cases date back to the 1990s when Kosovo was a province within Serbia. Already a source of much rancor, many Serbs are planning a new phase of resistance.
A breakthrough on Schengen visas could not only ease the lives for Kosovar travelers but also encourage minority Serbs in Kosovo to join a system whose sovereignty they've been reluctant to endorse.
Kosovo is targeting cryptocurrency miners, whose operations to produce virtual currency are draining the country's electricity grid, amid a state of emergency linked to an energy crunch. In Kosovo crypto mining is big business, so what happens next?
Bargains trump politics in Mitrovica store that shows ethnic Serbs, Albanians can coexist.
