The Kosovo Hydrometeorological Institute warned last week that the country could be hit by powerful storms, accompanied by thunderstorms, heavy rain, hail and strong winds. According to the warning, the storms could bring lightning strikes, endangering people and animals, as well as causing damage to the electricity grid, power outages and disruptions to telecommunications networks.
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Following the announcement, municipalities raised concerns that they lack sufficient financial resources to manage such situations. For this reason, they are calling for the creation of an emergency fund.
The Emergency Management Agency (EMA) announced that it had increased its level of operational and coordination readiness.
In a written response, the EMA explained that operational readiness entails forwarding the warning to all professional firefighting and rescue units. Meanwhile, coordination readiness includes increasing staffing at the Agency’s Operations Center and implementing standard operating procedures to coordinate support for the local level.
The Agency emphasized that when a disaster exceeds the capacities of the affected municipality, the EMA initiates and coordinates mutual assistance from neighboring municipalities and central-level institutions.
The chairman of the Association of Kosovo Municipalities, Sazan Ibrahimi, told KP that municipalities’ financial capacity to cope with storms is extremely limited. According to him, institutional responsibility for such situations lies with the central level of government.
Ibrahimi said municipalities are in an extremely unfavorable financial position, while tens of millions of euros, according to him, are being unfairly taken away from them. As a result, they lack the capacity to take significant measures related to climate change.
He stressed that the Government of the Republic of Kosovo administers the state budget and that the central level manages more than 77-78% of it. For this reason, according to Ibrahimi, municipalities cannot take major financial action following storm warnings.
The head of the Association of Kosovo Municipalities added that the central level also bears institutional responsibility for covering or reimbursing damage caused by floods and other natural phenomena to agriculture, residents, infrastructure and businesses.
Ibrahimi said that residents of various municipalities are still waiting for compensation from the Government for damage caused by the 2022 floods.
According to him, the failure to establish an Emergency Fund, despite the requests submitted, is one of the reasons for these delays. He said the Association had identified two measures that would enable faster compensation for residents affected by natural disasters.
As a first measure, the Association has proposed establishing an emergency fund for municipalities. Ibrahimi explained that this would be a budget line through which the central level could respond immediately via the municipalities, as the latter have no dedicated budget line to cover the costs of flooding.
He stressed that the absence of such a budget line is delaying compensation for damage and that some residents are not receiving full compensation for the losses they have suffered.
The second problem, according to Ibrahimi, concerns bureaucracy at the central level. Once municipalities prepare reports on damage caused by natural phenomena, including floods, they are approved by the municipal assemblies.
He noted that the municipal assembly is the highest decision-making body at the local level and is composed of members representing both the governing parties and the opposition. However, when the reports are sent to the Emergency Management Agency, they can be reviewed and reassessed, further prolonging the process.
To avoid this delay, the Association has called for assessment commissions to include representatives of both municipalities and the central level. According to Ibrahimi, bureaucratic procedures are taking an unnecessary amount of time.
The mayor of the Municipality of Rahovec, Smajl Latifi, has also called for the establishment of an Emergency Fund, saying that such a mechanism would help manage emergency situations.
Latifi said Kosovo’s municipalities currently have no emergency funds. He noted that requests and appeals had been made for municipalities to be allowed to have at least their own emergency funds so they could manage such cases.
According to him, it is essential for municipalities to have an emergency fund and the right to manage situations arising from natural disasters.
The mayor of Rahovec also called on the Government of Kosovo to compensate residents of the municipality for damage amounting to 3-4 million euros.
Latifi said the time had finally come for the Government to pay for damage caused in the municipalities of the Republic of Kosovo. He said affected residents of the Municipality of Rahovec have been waiting since 2022 for payments of 3-4 million euros to be disbursed in order to alleviate the consequences of the damage accumulated over the years.
Meanwhile, municipal authorities in South Mitrovica said they had faced flooding at the beginning of their term in office. Municipal spokesperson Shkëlzen Haliti said the situation had been managed well and that all necessary steps had been taken, even though the directors of the relevant departments were not in place at the time.
Haliti also considered the creation of an Emergency Fund essential. According to him, the fund would facilitate the municipality’s work overall and allow assistance to be provided to residents in real time.
He explained that, in various emergencies, legal procedures for payments and other matters can take time. According to Haliti, a fund secured in advance would allow the municipality to intervene more quickly and efficiently, responding immediately to residents’ needs.
In recent years, Kosovo has faced floods that have caused damage in most municipalities.
