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UNMIK/PR/672
PRISTINA - Members of the Interim Administrative Council today welcomed draft regulations that UNMIK has deemed necessary to promulgate before the end of the year, due to fiscal or other deadlines. Acting SRSG Charles Brayshaw introduced draft regulations on the Kosovo Consolidated Budget for the year 2002, on pensions and on the Civil Service-all of which IAC members agreed were needed urgently. He noted that while it was necessary to sign these regulations now, the Kosovo Assembly could amend them later. Mr. Brayshaw briefed IAC members on the first meeting of the High Level Working Group which he held last week with FRY/Serbia Coordination Centre President Nebojsa Covic in Pristina, where procedural matters were discussed. The Kosovo Albanian members of the IAC-Mr. Kuci, representing the PDK, Mr. Kole Berisha of the LDK and Mr. Ramush Haradinaj, AAK leader-expressed their disapproval of the High Level Working Group, which is expected to include representation from the Provisional Self-Government of Kosovo when appropriate. The High Level Working Group is to be a discussion forum to help implement common concerns listed in the Common Document, signed between the SRSG and Mr. Covic in November. COMKFOR Gen. Marcel Valentin also briefed the IAC on the security situation,
which he said has been relatively calm over the past week. The draft regulation on Pensions proposes to introduce a comprehensive pension system, by which the elderly will begin to receive pension benefits paid from general revenues via the Pensions and Benefit Administration in the Department of Labor and Social Welfare. Current workers will begin to make contributions (matched by employers) to the Kosovo Pension Savings Trust. The draft civil service regulation provides the legal framework for the Kosovo Civil Service.
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