Kosovo’s Energy Regulatory Office, ERO, on Friday allowed the price of electricity to rise by 16 per cent on average.

“The average tariff increase for all customer categories based on Maximum Allowed Revenues is around 16 per cent,” ERO explained in a statement on Facebook, after a meeting at which the board members declined journalists’ requests to elaborate. The actual price hikes and the implementation date are expected to be decided next week.

The ERO board approved a maximum allowed revenue for Kosovo’s electricity supply company, KESCO, of 435.9 million euros, also increasing the revenue limits for the system and market operator, KOSTT, and the distribution company, KEDS.

According to the ERO, the 16-per-cent increase reflects rising demand, a lack of local production and a rise in the price of imported energy. “Because most countries in the region are net importers, cross-border networks are often overloaded. This leads to increased prices for using cross-border lines for imports,” it said.

While the ERO board was nodding through the price increase, dozens of citizens joined a protest organised by the activist group Asnje Cent me Shume [Not Another Cent].

Activists call the decision illegal, and Besnik Shabiu, from Not Another Cent, told the media: “Experts in the group are compiling a lawsuit. We will not back off.

“We will gather again and again until we achieve our goals,” he said.

This is the third protest the activist group has organised lately. On April 2, police arrested 12 activists who staged a protest in front of the ERO offices.

Dozens of citizens joined another protest organised by Not Another Cent in Pristina on April 5 against the increase in prices, which the energy regulator at the time said would likely be up by 15 per cent.

Kosovo’s isolated energy market is highly dependent on coal and outdated power plants, which often results in supply interruptions.

The latest increase has many worried in a country with an average salary of 600 euros, where many citizens still await compensation for being overcharged for paying for the electricity used by the four Serb-majority municipalities in the north from 2012 to 2015.

The government has estimated the total cost of unpaid electricity in the north at some 320 million euros since 1999.