2020: Kosovo Parliament with weaker performance

Thus have Kosovo Assembly monitors Eugen Cakoli from the Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI) and Albert Krasniqi from Democracy plus (D+).

Eugen Cakoli estimated that this legislature is the weakest the Republic of Kosovo has ever had.

This is one of the weakest legislatures we've ever had, both in terms of meeting the legislative agenda and in terms of executive and citizen representation. This legislature will be remembered for the fact that two governments were changed in one year”, he said.

As for meeting the legislative agenda, Cakoli said Kosovo's Assembly has approved only 1/10 of the legislative agenda compiled by the government, but also of the work of commissions.

“Concretically, the Assembly has adopted a total of 17 laws, which the majority are laws affecting the finance sector or the International Agreement, which deal with taking certain means either from outside actors or in other forms. The Assembly has approved the budget draft for delaying budget lines, other financial agreements where we don't have any other bill regulating more general or specific aspects of citizens' lives”, he has said.

Chocolate also said that there were verbal and physical clashes between LDK and LVV deputies in the country.

The “What we've seen was the Assembly of political clashes, especially of LDK and LVV, due to the created situation of Albin Kurti's collapse. They've degraded the reports they've had, and they've gone all the way to verbal and physical clashes between deputies”, Cakolli said.

He also hopes that the new legislature will be productive, as well as MPs will begin to take primary interest in citizens rather than their political calculations.

So it's good that we're wrapping up such a year in the hope that the new legislature whenever it's created will be considerably more productive, and MPs begin to take first interest in their citizens and interests, rather than their political calculations”, Calcoli said.

Albert Krasniqi from D+ also estimated that the Assembly of Kosovo during 2020 acted under extraordinary circumstances.

As he said, there were delays in the election of government Kurti at the beginning of the year, then he faced the pandemic and the motion of no confidence in the government, which affects the reduction of supervisory and legal activities, and ultimately publication of the Constitutional Court's announcement.

In addition, even during the time of the Hoti Government, the majority in the Assembly was not stable and did not have the capacity to adopt laws that stemmed directly from the government programme”, he said.

Krasniqi said the Assembly was also damaged in quality of representation of MPs.

The resolution of the two governments within a year prompted some of the MPs who were among the most voted to switch to the executive and be replaced by less voted MPs. The publicisation that occurred to the political scene following the motion to the government Kurti, decoupling the legitimacy of the government Hoti from a part of the opposition, not co-operation between opposition parties, as well as differences within the ruling coalition, has led to the degradation of the debate in the Assembly, damage functionality and undermine public confidence in this” institution, he praised Telegraphy.

As for meeting the legislative agenda, Krasniqi stressed that this year was the weakest of the Kosovo Assembly.

He said that during 2020 only 17 laws have been adopted, out of which 12 are ratification of international agreements that are only through one reading.

If we compare the number of laws adopted within a year, from 2008 until now, we see that 2020 is the worst year of the Parliament in terms of adoption of laws. Even during the election years, more laws have been passed than they have now. In addition, although it was the new legislature and everything started from zero, not inheriting points of the agenda from the preliminary year, 56 points have finally been collected that had to be considered at previous sessions. There are still provisions that have not been approved by the sessions held in August. This data also speaks of defects in organising the affairs of the Parliament, of lack of commitment by MPs to fulfil their obligations, and of the majority's inability to push ahead its programme in the Parliament”, Krasniqi from D+ said, among other things.

Unlike KDI statistics, the Assembly reportedly adopted only 17 bills out of 48 while in the process of review, while MPs posed 187 parliamentary questions for the executive and initiated 13 interprecies.

According to KDI's publication, it is also said that the Assembly held 14 parliamentary debates and adopted six resolutions, while parliamentary commissions held 319 meetings, 43 of them were meetings of investigative commissions.