The citizens of Kosovo have lost their legal right to compensation for the electricity bills they paid on behalf of the residents of four northern municipalities, from 1999 to 2012.
The People’s Advocate of Kosovo, Naim Qelaj, says that requests for debt repayment or damages caused can be made retrospectively for only five years – otherwise, the legal deadline for exercising this right expires.
From June 1 of this year, their compensation will begin only for invoices paid from 2012 to 2017 – a process that will last until 2030.
This decision was taken last month, based on a lawsuit filed by the People’s Advocate in 2017.
At the request of the court, the Board of the Energy Regulatory Office (ERO) obliged the electricity distribution services to compensate consumers.
Residents of the municipalities of North Mitrovica, Zveçan, Zubin Potok and Leposaviq – the majority of them Serbs – have not paid for the electricity used since the end of the war in 1999.
The refusal came as a result of civil disobedience, but also the influence of various structures there, which operated under the leadership of Serbia.
Until the end of 2017, the electricity spent in the north was paid for by citizens of other parts of Kosovo, who received increased bills.
From 2017 onwards – after numerous complaints from citizens and the lawsuit filed by the Ombudsman – the responsibility for the payment passed to the System, Transmission and Market Operator of Kosovo, KOSTT, while the Government of Kosovo also allocated subsidies.
In 2022, then, Kosovo and Serbia agreed on the implementation of an agreement on energy, reached as early as 2013, within the dialogue for the normalization of relations.
In practice, this agreement began to be implemented at the end of February.
The Basic Court in Pristina took the decision for compensation in 2021, with which it requested the return of over 40 million euros to the citizens of Kosovo.
The decision was then confirmed by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, and in March of this year by the Constitutional Court.
Qelaj says that the court’s decision to compensate citizens only for five years was taken after the case on this issue was raised in 2017. By law, he recalls, the retrospective period cannot go beyond five years.
In 2012, KEK officials stated why the total consumer debt in the north, since the end of the war until then, was estimated to be over 100 million euros.
The total value of the annual invoices for the four municipalities there, according to official data, reached from 8 to 10 million euros, REL reports.
