PRISTINA (Kosovo), February 4 (SeeNews) – Kosovo's parliament approved the statute of the zinc and lead mining and smelting complex Trepca, moving forward with a plan to revive the indebted majority state-owned company, the government said.
The statute gives Trepca the necessary legitimacy to operate in its full capacity, prime minister Ramush Haradinaj said in a press release on Sunday, following the vote in parliament.
In May 2018, the statute was approved by the government.
Trepca's statute defines the activity, organisational structure, capital, management and other specific organisational issues of the company in order to facilitate its restructuring, the government said at the time. The statute proposed by Trepca's supervisory board also stipulates that Kosovo's government will keep control of 80% of the share capital of Trepca, while 20% will be owned by the company employees as defined in the Trepca bill.
In 2016, Kosovo parliament approved a bill putting the company under government control. The bill was opposed by the Kosovo Serbs party, Serb List, which said the new legislation violates the constitution. They filed a complaint in Kosovo's Constitutional Court. The court rejected the party's claims, adding that the Serb List did not provide evidence to show how or why the Trepca bill has violated the constitution.
Serbia does not recognise Kosovo's independence and claims ownership of Trepca as an asset of the former Yugoslavia. Kosovo, an autonomous province within the former Yugoslavia, declared independence in 2008. To date, more than 100 UN member states, including 23 out of 28 EU member states, have recognised Kosovo as an independent state.
In its heyday in the 1970s, Trepca employed more than 20,000.