Kosovo Assembly Still Not Seated After 30-Day Deadline
The constitutional 30-day deadline has expired and the interrupted constitutive session still has no new date. Vetevendosje wants a political deal, PDK calls for mobilization.
Kosovo’s Assembly was still not seated on Monday, and lawmakers in Pristina were given no new date to resume the constitutive session. The 30-day deadline set by the Constitutional Court for forming the new legislature has since expired, and the Vetevendosje Movement (LVV), which holds a majority of 62 lawmakers, did not put forward a single candidate for parliament speaker throughout that entire period.
Avni Dehari, who is chairing the constitutive session, gave no indication of when lawmakers might reconvene. He said a political deal was needed to break the current impasse, and accused part of the opposition of seeking incidents at the session rather than an agreement.
After the election held on June 7, caretaker Prime Minister Albin Kurti tied the Assembly’s formation to a broader political deal on Kosovo’s next president, primarily with the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK). No deal materialized, the deadline passed, and even after it expired Vetevendosje asked for more time for consultations rather than putting forward a candidate. We have already reported on the session’s suspension and that request for a delay.
Kurti confirmed that talks with party leaders were continuing and said the attempts would resume daily.
“The people of Kosovo do not want elections, they want a solution. And the solution is a political agreement,” Kurti said, again calling on the other parties to talks.
What Happens Legally Now That the Deadline Has Passed?
Kosovo’s constitutional practice so far offers no answer to that question. It remains open whether the expired deadline has exhausted this legislature’s ability to complete its formation, what legal weight any steps taken after that date carry, and whether this opens the way to a new election.
Vetevendosje lawmaker Glauk Konjufca argues the Constitution has not been violated and that the formation process may run longer than a single day. According to him, constitutional experts disagree on whether the session must conclude within 24 hours.
“According to some experts, who hold different interpretations, it can run longer than 24 hours. That is what is happening now too, it has been going on for more than a day. It is not as dramatic as the opposition makes it out to be,” Konjufca said.
He said Kurti would try again to talk with the PDK, LDK and AAK.
The Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) offered the opposite reading of the same document. PDK lawmaker Perparim Gruda cited Constitutional Court ruling KO124/25, specifically paragraph 140, arguing the 30-day deadline cannot be treated as a window in which forming the Assembly merely has to be attempted, but as a deadline by which it must be formed.
“Glauk Konjufca, you go to the Constitutional Court to have the Constitution interpreted, not to have the Court’s own rulings interpreted, because that would mean seeking an interpretation of an interpretation,” Gruda said.
Opposition Cites a Blockade, Government Cites a Deal
PDK lawmaker Burim Ramadani marked Monday as the third day of Vetevendosje’s blockade of the Assembly. His party colleague Besnik Tahiri filmed a video from an almost empty parliament building, saying the continuation of the session had not even been called.
“This Assembly has turned into a museum piece, it’s empty, there’s no one here,” Tahiri said, adding that both the Rules of Procedure and the Constitutional Court’s ruling had been violated.
The tone sharpened further that evening, after a meeting of the PDK Presidency. The party said Kosovo is facing a deep constitutional and institutional crisis, for which it blames Vetevendosje.
“Vetevendosje has turned into a wrecker of the state’s institutional foundations. When the Constitution, Constitutional Court rulings, the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure and binding deadlines are all ignored, we are no longer talking about an ordinary political disagreement. The very order on which our state rests is under attack,” PDK leader Bedri Hamza said.
“We cannot act as if things were normal. There is no normalcy,” Hamza added.
The PDK Presidency announced it would mobilize party structures in every municipality, branch and sub-branch, along with a series of legal, political and civic actions, in consultation with other parties, institutions and civil society organizations.
The Paradox: From 48 to 62 Lawmakers
Eugen Cakoli of the Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI) pointed to a comparison. A year ago, when Vetevendosje did not hold a majority, a candidate for Assembly speaker was put forward 14 times with only 48 lawmakers. Now, with a majority of 62 seats, not once in 30 days.
KDI says political actors cannot unilaterally determine the consequences of a missed deadline, nor settle the matter by fait accompli, and it has called on at least ten lawmakers to petition the Constitutional Court. Cakoli also asked that it be established who ordered the plenary hall’s doors locked to lawmakers during the interrupted session.
Acting Assembly President Albulena Haxhiu was more cautious than Konjufca on the question of whether the Constitution had been breached, and pointed to the next deadline now starting to run: if a president is not elected within 60 days of the Assembly’s formation, the country goes to early elections.
“Whether or not the Constitution has been violated is for the Constitutional Court to say. Anyone who believes Kosovo’s Constitution has been violated can bring that question to the Constitutional Court,” Haxhiu said.
For now there is neither a new session date nor a submitted candidacy, nor has anyone approached the Constitutional Court to resolve what legal force, if any, exists once the deadline has passed.
