No plan for compensation after closing

Under these measures, between 7 April and 18 April, gastronomial services are obliged to suspend their activity. These businesses will be allowed to work only with “take to yourself”, “task force”, or take orders without leaving cars.

Under this decision, the activity will also be banned from closed malls, in addition to essential services within them, such as food stores and pharmacies.

Debrani, who rents the 74 square meters bar, says there is no account to work only with the “take it with you because the expenses are extremely large. He even points out that he is thinking about not opening the bar until the pandemic is finished.

There's no comfort in business for a year and a half. But with new measures starting to apply by tomorrow (April 7th), I have decided not to open the business at all until the pandemic is finished. It would be better to pay only the rent of the bar than the remaining”, Debrani points out for Radio Free Europe.

In the restaurant “Snooks” are working seven workers. Debrane shows that some of them are already interested in finding employment elsewhere.

Representatives of the Kosovo Gastronom Association, meanwhile, are concerned that the closure measures have been undertaken without a concrete plan for financial assistance.

Ardian Vranica, of this association, shows that during their meeting with government representatives Saturday, half of the workers' salary value and 50 percent of the sum of rents were promised, but, he says, no specific value was mentioned.

Vranica stresses that the gastronomy sector has not yet managed to recover financial losses caused by the measures taken in March of last year, while new measures, he says, will further deepen the crisis.

This is disturbing because closure is happening, even during the closure the assessment is expected to take place. It causes consequences, and then it is trying to deal with compensation. We haven't had a sort of clear correspondence, how many budgetary capacities, how many workers have the ability to subsidize, when we know gastronomy is the number three employer in the country in terms of the number of employees”, Vranica said.

Majid Bektash, professor of economics at the University of Pristina, also considers the decision on restrictive measures to be swift. He says the government of Kosovo in the first place has had to present an economic recovery programme for the dedication of means for the gastronomic sector and other businesses related to the sector.

Making a decision without a concrete plan for compensation for damages will add to the economic situation of businesses, which are directly or indirectly affected by these measures. The government needs to make the concrete project to finance or subsidise these sectors that are in a difficult economic and financial situation, but will also influence high unemployment growth, which is also very high”, Bektash says.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, during the day Monday after the government's meeting, where he has presented measures for preventing corruption, has not presented any plans for financing, but has said that soon relevant ministries will present their plan.

There is no doubt that we will have our own work plan to get out of this even deeper economic crisis, due to COVID-19 pandemic. And soon the ministers of the line, not only the Ministry of Finance, Labour and Transfers, but the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Trade, and the Ministry of Economy and Environment will come with the plan not to reflect on the deepening economic crisis”, Kurti has said.

Radio Free Europe has asked the offices to inform these ministries whether they have any concrete plans, but by the time they publish the text, none of them have given any answers.

The chairman of this Ode, Berat Rukiqii, has said that “if there is no financial support for businesses and a clear plan on what will be done after 11 days of restrictions, businesses will increase resistance to the implementation of any anti-border measures. - CO VID. Without mass inoculation, there is no return to normality or economic recovery”, Rukiqi wrote on Facebook.

Non-racial and harmful measures for Kosovo's economy have considered the new measures the Kosovo Alliance of Business (AKB).

Meanwhile, the Kosovo Afarism Oda (OAK) has asked Kosovo institutions that no total restrictions or closure of businesses be done without preliminary financial support.

Gastronomy is considered the most damaged sector by the government's decisions on insulting or restrictive measures, since the introduction of the first most coronary cases in Kosovo in March 2020. To that end, last government led by Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, from the Programme for Economic Recovery, in January of this year has earmarked threem euros -- much that has not yet begun to spread.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry data, about 20,000 businesses in the gastronomy sector are registered on Kosovo's territory.

The Government of Kosovo's reasoning on the new measures is said to have tested the Kosovo National Public Health Institute (IKSHPK) with 147 positive coronary samples for detecting the British version of the Coronavirus and that of South Africa.

So this situation, where the British version is mostly widespread, says the government, requires that more exposure to COVID-19 be minimized and that its expansion slow down so that hospital service capacities are affordable and manageable.

On Tuesday, April 6th, Kosovo registered eight victims and 489 new cases. With the latest figures, Kosovo's total number of Coronavirus infected totals 94.656, of victims at 1,934 and of the cured at 78,702.