Gazivode Demolitions Reach the European Parliament
Leaders of the Platform for a European Serbia ask Brussels to protect Kosovo Serbs' property rights after 17 structures were torn down at Gazivode, despite an earlier EU call to halt the work.
Four leaders of the opposition Platform for a European Serbia sent a letter on August 2 to European Union institutions and members of the European Parliament, asking Brussels to insist on protecting the property and other rights of the Serb community in Kosovo. The immediate trigger was the demolitions at Gazivode, which have been underway on the lake shore since late June.
The letter was signed by Zdravko Ponos, president of Srbija Centar, Pavle Grbovic, president of the Movement of Free Citizens, Dragan Djilas, president of the Party of Freedom and Justice, and Goran Jesic of the Solidarity movement. The document states that the structures were removed without proper court rulings and in violation of legal procedure, and describes the lake itself as an area of strategic, environmental, economic and social importance.
What the opposition is asking of the European Union
The signatories want the Union to demand that authorities in Pristina respect the rule of law and the international commitments they have already taken on. The demolition of weekend houses, catering facilities and the Jezero hotel is cited in the letter as the most recent example, though not the only one.
The letter lists additional causes for concern:
- the Association of Serb Majority Municipalities, still not formed after years of dialogue
- the closure of institutions that provide basic public and social services to the Serb community
- the elimination of the dinar from payment transactions
- restrictions on bringing goods in from central Serbia
- measures affecting the position of the Serbian Orthodox Church
That list is deliberately built the way it is. The signatories want the demolitions at the lake read not as an isolated administrative matter but as part of a broader pattern of measures against the Serb community, and within that pattern they single out the Association of Serb Municipalities as an unfulfilled obligation from the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.
How the action at the lake unfolded
The demolitions are being carried out by the regional water utility Ibar-Lepenac, with the assistance of Kosovo Police. The company says it is removing illegal construction inside the protected zone of the reservoir and has announced the work will continue.
Workers from the utility began demolishing about ten weekend houses in Cecevo, on the Gazivode shore near Zubin Potok, on July 21. Owners had previously been given 15 days to clear out their belongings. By the end of the month the Jezero hotel had also been torn down, the 17th structure removed in the area, a figure given by Kosovo’s minister of environment, spatial planning and infrastructure, Fitore Pacolli, who said the operation would continue without compromise.
At the time, the hotel’s owners pointed out that a court hearing had been scheduled for August 12 to settle the question of who owned the land and the building. The excavators arrived before that date.
Why does the letter go to Brussels, not Pristina?
Because Brussels had already stepped in once, without effect. The European Union Office in Kosovo and the German Embassy in Pristina had called for an immediate halt to the demolitions at the lake, warning of serious rule of law concerns. The demolitions continued anyway.
That is also why the letter is worded the way it is: it does not ask the Union for a call to action, it asks for insistence. The difference between those two words is an entire political difference. A call is a position, insistence implies a tool, and the tools the Union holds over Pristina are tied to the measures already imposed on it and to the pace of its European path.
The letter also has a domestic angle. The Platform for a European Serbia was formally launched in June this year, a pro-European coalition of Srbija Centar, the Party of Freedom and Justice and the Movement of Free Citizens, joined by Solidarity, built with the next election cycle in mind. Kosovo is a subject the ruling party typically keeps to itself, and one on which it routinely accuses the opposition of being too soft on the West. Approaching the EU institutions directly over the property of Serbs in northern Kosovo is an attempt to shift that framing, since this time the message is not relayed from Belgrade to Brussels through intermediaries but sent directly and under the opposition’s own name.
What happens to the structures whose status remains disputed is still an open question. Ibar-Lepenac has announced the operation will continue, the ministry in Pristina has already named the Batlava and Badovac reservoirs as next in line, and the court hearing in the dispute over the Jezero hotel is scheduled for August 12, ten days after the letter was sent to Brussels.
