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UNMIK/PR/638 IAC Gets Draft Regulation on Executive Structures of Provisional Self-Government SRSG Hans Haekkerup today presented members of the Interim Administrative Council with a draft regulation which defines the structure of the executive branch of the provisional institutions of self-government to be formed after general elections on 17 November, 2001. The structures to be established by this regulation are those mandated by the Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government, promulgated on 15 May 2001. Members of the IAC, who voiced general support for the draft regulation today, will consider it in detail during the week before deciding upon their endorsement . Mr. Haekkerup stressed the enormity of the task that lay ahead, including the conversion of 20 departments into nine ministries; moving and renovating offices and establishing security for the new provisional government. He urged IAC members to voice their approval this week, so that he could sign the regulation and begin some of the physical changes before the elections. According to the Constitutional Framework, and UN Security Council 1244, UNMIK was to set up institutions of provisional self-government, leaving certain key executive functions with the SRSG, such as law and order, foreign relations and the powers to raise taxes and appoint judiciary. The draft regulation re-iterates that the "exercise of the responsibilities conferred upon the Executive Branch of the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government…shall not in any way affect or diminish the ultimate authority of the SRSG for the implementation of UNSCR 1244…" Most other functions will be transferred to a provisional self-government, the Assembly of which will be elected on 17 November. The executive branch of provisional self-government, as outlined in the draft regulation presented today, is to include the office of the Prime Minister and nine ministries. They are a ministry of finance and economy; a ministry of trade and industry; a ministry of culture, youth and sports; a ministry of education, science and technology; a ministry of labor and social welfare; a ministry of health, environment and spatial planning; a ministry of transport and communications; a ministry of public services; and a ministry of agriculture, forestry and rural development. The draft regulation also sets out the executive agencies (Kosovo Drug Regulatory Authority; Kosovo Statistical Office, Kosovo Cadastral Agency and others to be established); and the Civil Service, which will be composed of a few international staff; a small number of political appointees and a majority of staff selected on the basis of professional skills. At least one of nine ministers will be from the Serb community with one representing other non-Albanian communities, while the civil service will also include non-majority community members in proportion to their presence in the Assembly. Also today, the IAC endorsed three draft regulations which are intended to strengthen the hand of police and judiciary in fighting crime: they are a regulation on cooperative witnesses, a regulation on the protection of injured parties and witnesses in criminal proceedings, and a regulation on measures against organized crime. In an update on elections, OSCE chief Daan Everts said that new registrants were being signed up at a rate of 3-4,000 a day, with 45,000 Internally Displaced Persons now registered in Serbia proper. He said that if the rate continued to climb, an extension of the registration deadline would be considered past 8 September. He also said 36,000 mail-in applications to register from elsewhere outside Kosovo were now being processed in Vienna. Mr. Everts told the IAC that 34 political entities
had registered to participate in the elections-with at least five Kosovo
Serb parties in the process of certification. He reminded party
leaders that the final list of candidates -who could number some 2,000 all
together-is due by 1
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