Kosovo’s population has increased from 1.8 to 1.5 million people in more than a decade, according to preliminary results of the national census which ended on Friday, the National Statistics Agency (ASK) announced on Saturday. .
Whether or not the Serbian minority will participate in the census, the first since the 2011 census which it boycotted, has not yet been established, the text clarified. “Despite the challenges and complexity it encountered,” it was “achieved successfully,” assured ASK.
Initial projections show that Kosovo has more than 1.5 million inhabitants, ASK director Avni Kastrati told reporters. Ethnic Albanians make up the overwhelming majority of the population, but in the north of the country ethnic Serbs are the majority in four municipalities.
Tension has recently risen in the country between the two communities, notably due to the implementation of a controversial new law in February, which made the euro the only legal tender in Kosovo, effectively banning the Serbian dinar . The move prompted Kosovo’s largest Serb party, the Serbian List, to urge its supporters to boycott the census.
Census officials said they would not be able to confirm a possible boycott by Serbs, whose population is estimated at around 100,000, until all the data collected was processed. They did not rule out this possibility, however, because the Serbian supervisors and census takers in charge of the north resigned a day after the start of operations, on April 5.
Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, proclaimed its independence in 2008. But Belgrade has never recognized it and continues to finance a health, education and social security system for Kosovo Serbs. In 2011, the population count reached a result of 1.8 million inhabitants, with 93% Albanians.
