Opposition conditions vote for 2019 budget

The first review of this bill is to be presented at the Kosovo Assembly session on December 6th.

But opposition party deputies give little hope that they will vote for the principle of budget approval.

The biggest opposition subject, the Democratic League of Kosovo, says it will not vote on the draft budget, while the Vetevendosje Movement says that unless some of the budgetary shortcomings are improved, it will not support it in the current form proposed.

While the other opposition subject, the Social Democrat Party has not provided any answers to the issue.

Naser Osmani, deputy of the Democratic League of Kosovo, simultaneously a member of the Commission for Business and Finance, says they will not vote on the budget, as according to him, the draft budget for next year is not properly designed, is charged with social schemes and is divided into regional bases.

The Democratic League does not support such a budget, especially a budget that has been made with budgetary division of the municipalities where government officials come from. There are very few capital investments projects in municipalities where the LDK leads. And this is noted in the unfair distribution that has been done, and with this distribution they've broken down the grants formula that's a formula that's being distributed proportionally according to certain criteria”, Osmani said.

These are the reasons why LDK cannot vote. And especially fearing that the financial rules we consider to be at risk is the rule not to exceed the deficit by 2 percent of Bruto Product, which is defined legally defined”, Osmani says.

Meanwhile, Arberie Nagavci, deputy in the Kosovo Assembly by the Vetevendosje Movement, as well as a member of the Commission for Boards and Finance, told Radio Free Europe, that the draft budget for next year is not a unified, transparent budget and no citizens' service.

This draft budgets, according to her, accommodate multiple luxury, salary differences of civil servants, regardless of their cofficiency, and increased expenses for goods and services. Unless the shortcomings recorded by the Vetevendosje Movement improve, Nagavci says they won't vote for the bill.

We have seen tenfold in certain agencies budget, whether for the office of prime minister or president. And on the other hand, neither have the positions Government itself had in the governing programme for its priorities been addressed. If they look into the education field, although budget growth is being promoted, there is no investment in infrastructure, no new nursery or school is planned to be built. So, mainly there are projects launched much earlier and are lasting for a long time and are simply presentations for a voter fraud for specific regions”, Nagavci says.

In October, the Government of Kosovo has adopted the draft budget for 2019, which is designed to reach the figure of 2.3 billion euros and envisions increasing the amount to pay off social schemes.

Lulzim Rafuna, adviser to the Kosovo government's Finance Minister for Radio Free Europe, says this budget is expected to be the highest Kosovo has ever had, and is considered to be feasible, sustainable and maintaining fiscal stability.

The question of voting is the right of each MP. We have prepared the budget to reform the objectives of the Kosovo Government programme. It is a projection which goes to the best of the country's economic development, raising quality to the services of citizens of the Republic of Kosovo. It's a budget that has in all categories compared to last year. And given all these positive factors and such a well-built budget, we do not expect that we will not vote”, Rafuna said.

On the other hand, if the budget is not voted, according to legal procedures in the Kosovo Assembly, by December 20th, the country could go into a budget crisis. Then, according to the timetable, according to the Law on Finance Management, budget expenditures should be realised in the first three months of next year in1/12 of this year's budget.