“Early elections delay the reform process in the economy”

According to the executive director of the American Chamber of Economics, Arian Zeka, frequent election processes affect the access of foreign investors.

He in an interview for Radio Free Europe has said the political factor is one of the important factors analysed by investors, whether foreign or domestic.

According to him, any political uncertainty -- in this case, frequent holding of elections -- affects the mood of these investors.

Zeka points out that this situation restrains some of the developments even in legislative terms.

He says whatever has been in the legislative process in the preliminary legislature, with the creation of the new Parliament and new institutions going back to zero, which according to him means delay in the reform process or delay in creating a better environment for doing business.

“Po mentioned tax laws and a number of other laws that have been under way, including the Labour Law, which is an important legislative part that regulates the report between workers and employers, which has been spent a lot of time in the last two to three years, a valuable time of institutions, as well as by representatives of private sector organisations, including us. All those recommendations, comments given, must be repeated, and that makes the process understood”, he said.

Speaking of economic projects that will be hampered by the elections, Zeka has cited Telekom.

He says that during this current political situation, Telekom will not have the attention of institutions.

The “is starting with what is urgent nature, such as the need for the restructuring of Kosovo Telecom that employs thousands. Kosovo's telecom will suffer even further as a consequence of this situation, so it will not be able to complete the restructuring process, much less talk about privatisation. On the other hand, Telekom's financial problems that are not sure if they will give us the luxury to wait for a better moment when it can be restructured”, he says.

According to him, there is already a request to the court on the part of a creditors or a party, which, if executed as such, will then put Kosovo Telekom into even bigger financial problems.

This is one of the projects, I stressed that it affects the fate of thousands of employees and thousands of families, but there are many other projects. Other projects that will remain hostage to the completion of the election process and the creation of new institutions will also be apps of potential strategic investors, which are more than ten, which are awaiting response”, Zeka adds further.

He says that in this political situation, institutions cannot give the right answer if a company meets the criteria to obtain strategic investor status.

According to him, this means that even the patience of potential investors can be added and they can make the final decision to stop their interest in investing in Kosovo, which would do harm to the country.

Also, as projects that are going to face delays are many initiatives for creating free economic zones where the American Economic Zone is, which cannot take a form and regulate legally. Even those American companies that have heard of this project will see a devalvim, since nothing happens on the ground and everything is delayed until the creation of new institutions”, he has added further.