Mobile Telephony Serbia (MTS), the only Serbian telecommunications company in Kosovo owned by state-owned Telekom Serbia, will continue to challenge the recent decision from Pristina to revoke the company’s licence, claiming that the decision affects jobs, livelihoods and the ability for many to contact loved ones.
The revocation of the business certificate for MTS was announced by the Business Registration Agency of Kosovo (ARBK), citing a violation of the constitutional order as one of its executives holds a Serbian passport. Furthermore, the address listed on the passport is “Kosovska Mitrovica, Republic of Serbia,” undermining the independence of Kosovo as a sovereign country.
The headquarters of MTS is in North Mitrovica, but it has branches in other Serbian communities south of the Ibar River.
Vladimir Lučić, the company’s director, told EURACTIV that this is not about any principles or legal grounds but a clear intention to “shut down MTS d.o.o., a company established in 2015 by the Brussels Agreement, and whose sole founder and owner is Telekom Serbia, in a completely nonsensical and unjustified manner.”
“It can truly be interpreted as a complete absurdity that a company, which is also one of the biggest investors in the last nearly 10 years, would be shut down due to alleged shortcomings in the personal documents of an employee,” said Lučić, pointing to the fact that the employee also holds official documents issued by Pristina institutions, which are also part of MTS d.o.o.’s official documentation.
“We are very unpleasantly surprised that this alleged ‘administrative oversight’ is mentioned in the decision as a violation of alleged constitutional norms, which allegedly poses a serious threat to public security,” Lučić stressed.
A government official in Pristina, however, defended the decision stating “no matter how noble a company’s cause, it is subject to laws which it must comply with in order to respect the democratic structures of the company in which it operates.”
Telekom Serbia has already taken certain actions in response to this “legally unfounded decision,” as described by Lučić.
“The notice we received doesn’t leave us much room for reaction — we have been given 30 days for an appeal, and we are working on it,” said Lučić.
The establishment of MTS d.o.o. in Kosovo was in line with the Brussels Agreement on telecommunications in 2015.
It was envisaged that regulatory bodies would grant a license for the operation of the new company to provide mobile and fixed-line services, which would be registered by the Kosovo regulatory framework.
Subsequently, the Kosovo government decided to issue a permit to operate MTS d.o.o.
Kosovo obtained the country’s calling code, +383 based on the same agreement.
(EURACTIV.rs | Jelena Jevtić)
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