Salaries from January up, decision could end in Constitutional

Prime Minister Albin Kurti's decision to raise salaries from January, respectively, could end at the Constitutional Court.

Representatives of civil society and economic professors have warned that this increase has no legal basis and that it is promised only “election benefits”.

Ehat Miftaraj, from the Kosovo Institute for Justice (IKD), and Majid Bektash, professor of economics at the University of Pristina, have stated that the move could be completed in Constitutional and that if the Constitution finds there are legal violations, the decision is abolished and wages remain at the current level.

According to Kurti's pledge on 29 October, wages will be raised in two phases of Qaeda for 55 euros from January and another 55 euros from July.

Kurti said that wage growth will be done with the rise in the level of the coffient for entities, not the cofficiency itself.

The “starting in January of next year, [the level of] cofficiency will grow for 0.5 units, and then from July 2025, for another 0.5 units. So, someone with a 5.6 cofficiency will have 6.1 in January, and in July 6,6”, Kurti said.

The value of the cofficient, meanwhile, will remain as much as it currently stands at 110 euros.

To determine wages, the level of the cofficient is multiplied at its value.

But, in Article 42 of the Law for Public Sector Salaries, where the financial amount of the 110 euro cofficiency is also allocated, it is said that “prevents any change in structure, components or wage cofficiency levels”.

The cofficiency's financial value may increase from 110 euros to higher, but changes to the level of cofficiency, which, under this law, are from 2 to 18.

There's no need to be a minister, not a lawyer, but a simple citizen... and if you read Article 42, you understand how growth is proposed... The government rebuilds a new facility, offering additional co-efficinators to the current”, Miftaraj has said about Radio Free Europe.

Finance Minister Iron Murati has declared at the Government meeting on October 30th that a new provision regulating the issue has been added to the draft budget.

The “ [Disposiency] allows the increase of the cofficiency in the wage Law table, starting in January for 0.5 units and from July to a further 0.5 units, to complete the growth for one entity for all employees in the public sector”, Murati said.

At that government meeting, where he spoke, the Constitutional Bill for 2025 was passed, worth 3.6 billion euros, which was submitted to the Assembly for approval.

MPs must approve it further by December 31st to take effect on January 1st, 2025.

If the Assembly adopts this law by this provision, it is illegal, as it destroys the structure, components and leveling of cofficients”, Miftaraj says.

“This does not mean that wages will not come up with growth and time. But it remains in the opposition political parties, groups that define the Constitution, whether to submit this law to the Constitutional Court or not”, he adds.

For sending any law for assessment to the Constitutional Court, there are two possibilities, according to the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo.

The first ten or more deputies of the Kosovo Assembly -- within an eight-day deadline of approval -- have the right to contest the constitutionality of any law or decision adopted by the Parliament, both for the content and for the procedure followed.

The second within six months of law entry into force, 30 or more deputies of the Kosovo Assembly could submit it to the Constitutional Court.

If the measure for wage growth ends in Constitutional, Miftaraj says it, within six months, should assess its legitimacy.

“If the Court, after several months, estimates that the verdict is contrary to the Constitution, then it is abolished at the time it makes the decision, and wages return to the previous sum”, explains Miftaraj, whose institute monitors the justice system in the country.

According to him, it may also be that the Constitutional Court finds that wages remain the same, but to ask for the Parliament to increase the monetary amount of the cofficient.

According to the Kosovo Statistics Agency, the average gross public sector salary in 1923 was 730 euros, while netting about 630. In the private sector, meanwhile, it is evidently smaller.