Politics expected to produce new episodes of Kosovo economic crisis

Haradinaj's cabinet is the Government in resignation and has no competencies to make new decisions. Political parties have agreed to disperse the Kosovo Assembly on August 22nd.

This situation, according to economic experts, will produce the new episode of economic crisis after 2014, where economic growth was only 0.9 percent different from where in other years this growth has been about 4 percent.

In their view, reflections will be negative both from the inside and from the outside.

Safet Gerjaliu, an expert on economic issues, tells Radio Free Europe, that private businessmen usually before and after the elections refrain from investing, and in the public sector the efficiency of institutions for drafting new economic policies is markedly reduced.

On the outside, foreign investments, considered necessary for the economy, will be reduced because foreign businesspeople are reluctant to invest in countries that lack political security.

The “is a serious blow, in particular in the private sector because an orientation towards the political agenda falls individual and institutional responsibility and increases the extent of corruption and organised crime. And what Kosovo really costs most in this direction, the 1920s-2019s are dark years in terms of foreign investments”, Gerjaliu said.

Even the other expert on economic issues, Leke Musa, acknowledges that the situation before and after elections necessarily reflects on economic processes, but he says the political situation has been fragile over a long period.

“Until Kosovo has the newly established Government, it cannot enter into agreement with international financial mechanisms, or can't start with capital projects”.

Kosovo has a period that has no stability and political security. So there can be no impact on this pre-election event or this institutional vacuum. Because I can say that institutional vacuum has existed since neither Government nor Parliament have been functional”, Musa tells Radio Free Europe.

Musa says that even this year, the decision-making in the Kosovo Assembly was constantly challenged by the lack of quorum, which has been unable to pass some important economic laws.

In his view, it would be necessary to hold extraordinary elections, hoping to improve the situation in an economic way as well.

“Perhaps it will be good to go to the elections, in the hope that we can have a place that can work and a Government that will have sufficient numbers to pass the package of economic reforms”, Musa says.

Gerxhaliu says that if extraordinary elections are eventually announced, for improving the economic aspect, political parties should promote development programmes rather than individuals.

“In the future political parties must change their structure, then not be instructed to promote individuals, but developmental programmes and only then can there really be a change. Otherwise, with the same people, with the same parties, the change is desired, but it has not realised”, Gerjaliu told Radio Free Europe.

Such a situation was true in 2014, after general elections, where the political stalemate prevented the formation of domestic institutions for about six months.

At that time, according to official data, foreign direct investments in Kosovo had dropped to 151m euros, until economic growth had reached only one percent, the lowest in the last decade.