Following the Statement made by the Kosovo President Fatmir Sedjiu and by the Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, we would like to stress our appreciation of Kosovo's continued commitment to working closely with EULEX and other European institutions

As we have said earlier, the arrangements on police cooperation with Belgrade are of a technical nature. They aim at fighting organised crime and smuggling. This will be to the benefit to all the people in Kosovo.

In order to bring criminals to justice evidence needs to be shared and exchanged through the region and mechanisms need to be established to facilitate this. The Kosovo police will be heavily involved in the information exchange.

These arrangements, signed today on behalf of EULEX with the full support of the EU 27 member states, are an important step forward with a view to improve the Rule of Law throughout the whole of Kosovo.

Regional cooperation is a key factor in combatting cross border criminality. The mission will continue to seek operational cooperation on all such issues, related to its mandate.

However, in this context it is important to underline that EULEX is here to support Kosovo in the Rule of Law area and would never take any steps that would harm Kosovo.