Zulfaj raises the alarm: We risk losing €90 million if the country goes to the polls again

Jeton Zulfaj, Kosovo’s chief negotiator in the dialogue with the European Union, has warned that the institutional deadlock could jeopardize the funds allocated to Kosovo under the EU Growth Plan.

In a note published on Facebook, Zulfaj emphasized that holding elections again would put at risk large sums of money closely tied to the implementation of the reforms envisaged under the plan.

He explained that, for 22 measures under the Growth Plan worth a total of €131.4 million, the deadline for their fulfillment is December 31 of this year. Zulfaj warned that without a fully functioning parliament and a government with a full mandate, Kosovo could face the loss of nearly €90 million.

In his full statement, he wrote that returning to the polls would result in further losses of funds from the Growth Plan. According to him, €131.4 million tied to 22 measures under the plan has a final deadline of December 31 this year, and without functioning institutions, nearly €90 million could be lost permanently.

Zulfaj stressed that if parliament does not elect the president today, this would jeopardize the implementation of a significant portion of the Growth Plan reforms. He recalled that the bills that remained blocked in June because of the parliamentary deadlock—and for which a loss of more than €40 million is expected—were approved again by the government, submitted to parliament and passed their first reading yesterday. However, if the president is not elected today, these bills too will not reach a second reading and will have to restart the procedure from scratch, both in the government and in parliament.

Among these legal acts, he singled out the law that would pave Kosovo’s way toward membership in SEPA—specifically, the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing—which parliament approved at the end of 2024, but which the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) referred to the Constitutional Court. Each year outside SEPA costs Kosovo’s citizens and businesses around €55 million.

At the end of his statement, Zulfaj stressed that the deadlock is a deliberate decision, noting that the opposition has chosen the path of obstruction and that citizens are paying the cost of this action.