Kosovo Energy Regulatory Office, ERO, decided on Friday to implement a Constitutional Court ruling and compensate Kosovo citizens who were billed for  electricity usage in the Serb majority north of the country by deducting electricity bills. The compensation for consumers will start in June 2024 and is estimated to last until February 2030.

“These consumers will be compensated by deducting the respective compensation amount from their regular monthly bills,” an announcement, which came after a extraordinary meeting of ERO board of directors on April 5, stated. 

The Constitutional Court, in mid March 2024, had confirmed a Supreme Court decision to compensate Kosovo citizens who were billed for the unpaid electricity used in four Serb-majority municipalities in the country’s north from 2012 to 2017.

ERO, on Friday, decided to oblige the Electricity Distribution Services department to compensate only consumers whose payments between February 2012 and October 2017 can be verified.  

“These consumers will be compensated by deducting the respective compensation amount from their regular monthly bills,” the announcement stated.

The case originated in a lawsuit issued by Kosovo’s Ombudsperson challenging a 2012 decision by the Energy Regulatory Office that allowed people in the rest of the country to be billed for the electricity used in the northern municipalities of North Mitrovica, Zvecan, Leposavic, and Zubin Potok.

The Ombudsperson emphasised that this was a violation of the Law on the Energy Regulator and the Law on Electricity, as well as a violation of the rights to property and equality, which are guaranteed under the constitution.

The Basic Court in Prishtina annulled the Energy Regulatory Office’s 2012 decision, ruling it illegal, and ordered compensation of 40,855,480 euros to be paid for the costs incurred from February 2012 to October 2017.

Kosovo’s government paid for citizens’  electricity usage in the north from 2017 to 2023 because of a 2017 decision by the Kosovo Constitutional Court. The court ruled that shifting the cost of  electricity used by those in the northern municipalities of North Mitrovica, Leposavic, Zvecan, and Zubin Potok to the bills of all other Kosovo consumers was a violation of human rights. The cost to the Kosovo government of paying for the four municipalities’ electricity has been estimated at about 12 million euros a year.

Residents of the four northern municipalities had not paid for their electricity since the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999, when Serbia lost control over its former province. At the beginning of March 2024, billing for electricity use started in the four municipalities for the first time in over two decades.

Based on the 2013 Brussels Agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, and regulated by the so-called Energy Road Map of 2022, the company Elektrosever will provide distribution services in the four northern Serb-majority municipalities. The company was established under Kosovo law in 2013 but was only granted a licence in 2022 and started operating recently.