US, EU criticize Kosovo’s block on Serbian dinar

PRISTINA, Kosovo — The European Union and the United States expressed deep concern Sunday after Kosovo banned the use of the Serbian currency and police raided organizations working with the Serb minority in the north of the country.

In the past week, Kosovo police searched the premises of Serbia-administered institutions and of an ethnic Serb nongovernmental organization, confiscating papers and computers believed to hold documentation contrary to the country’s laws.

Some documents bore the emblem of the Serbian government in Belgrade, police said, while others referred to illegal parallel structures of government set up by ethnic Serbs but not accepted by Kosovo.

Police closed some of those offices.

Most of Kosovo uses the euro, even though the country isn’t part of the EU. But parts of Kosovo’s north, populated mostly by ethnic Serbs, continue to use the dinar. Many rely on the government of Serbia for financial support, often delivered in dinars in cash.