Houseless Sessions

The extraordinary Kosovo Assembly session, called for Friday by the opposition, in which it was envisioned to discuss foreign policy, has failed due to Kosovo's lack of quorum and the refusal of Foreign Affairs Minister Behgjet Pacolli. MPs attending the session said holding the session without the presence of Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj and Kosovo Foreign Minister Behgjet Pacolli made no sense.

Agnes Haxhiu, researcher and monitoring of the Parliament's work by the Kosovo Democratic Institute, told Radio Free Europe that there has been enough time period for the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs to be announced and taken responsibility to be present.

According to her, they are obliged to respond to the Parliament whenever the latter sees it reasonable, normally by respecting the timetable for notice.
Haxhiu said that from what has been seen during this legislature, the government cabinet is constantly avoiding this obligation.

“The failure of this session has also come as a result of a lack of co-ordination between parliamentary groups and the Parliamentary Headship. Now and again, the same situation is being repeated, where sessions fail because there is no agreement between parliamentary groups that it is held on a certain date, but the headship calls them”.

The two-way boycott that has started to take place at the start of the autumn session, where the hearings called at the opposition's request do not take part in the ruling parties and vice versa, is already heading towards normalisation as a practice, and this is normally only contributing to the blockade, in which the Assembly is now located from some months”, Haxhiu said.

With a procedure motion, with 58 votes per, it was decided that the Parliament's Headship will set the next date for holding the session extended. Opposition MPs said it is not the first time the government has fled its responsibilities and does not participate in the hearings.

The session's proposal, chief of the Parliamentary Group of the Democratic League of Kosovo, Avdullah Hoti, said that in the absence of the ruling coalition deputies and the government cabinet, the Parliamentary Group of the Democratic League of Kosovo must assign to the next meeting when the extraordinary session will be held.

“is the constitutional obligation of the ruling coalition, not the parliamentary majority, now because they are not parliamentary majority, to be present at the session. We fully understand the sensitivity of the theme and the purpose of this session has been because we also head the Foreign Policy Commission to better clarify foreign policy in terms of achieving the goals of the Republic of Kosovo.

However, in the complete absence of the ruling coalition and government deputies, the governing cabinet, we propose that the date when this session is held should be set at the next meeting of the Assembly's Headship”, Hoti said.

Meanwhile, Democratic Party of Kosovo Parliamentary Group chief Memli Krasniqi said that a letter has long been taken on the part of the prime minister and deputy prime minister who cannot be present at the session to discuss the issues raised.

Since the situation is what it is, we're not present, I believe it's on the way that, just as we've already talked about, we'll set it up on a different date. And it is also important that this session, since it addresses the topic of foreign policy, be put behind the vote for Kosovo's membership in INTERPOL, which should happen on the 20”, Krasniqi said.

MP Albulen Hadziu from the Vetevendosje Movement has called the Government irresponsible, which, despite the fact that, as she said, for 10 days has known the date of the session, they (Haradinaj and Pacolli) were still not present at the session.
According to Haxhi, citizens need to know the truth about everything that happens in foreign policy.
This is a government's responsibility against Location, they have a constitutional obligation to be here and since there is no quorum to decide on an exact date of the session, when this debate will be held, we are of reconciliation that the Headship at the next meeting assigns the same”, Haxhiu said.

The leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo's Parliamentary Group, Ahmet Isufi, said that even when the session is set to take place, it has shown that the prime minister will not be able to attend.

He told opposition deputies that they did not want to hear the reasoning why the hearing should not be held.

The reasoning was not heard, why did we ask that the session not be held this day”, Isufi said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Behgjet Pacolli had announced that he would not be present at this session, since there is another agenda that cannot be delayed.

This is the INTERPOL General Assembly meeting, starting on 18 November and continuing through 21 November in Dubai.

More than a year since the framework of the sixth legislature -- especially since the beginning of this year -- the Kosovo Assembly has failed to function properly and has consistently faced various problems, primarily of political nature.