Kosovo’s acting institutional leaders have highlighted the historic significance of the delegates of July 2, 1990, describing the Constitutional Declaration as one of the most important milestones in Kosovo’s journey toward statehood.

Acting President Albulena Haxhiu said that Kosovo at the time had very limited room to act but refused to accept being treated as a province of Serbia.

According to her, through the July 2 Declaration, Kosovo sought to speak on its own behalf and demand freedom rather than political privileges.

 “The Declaration defined the act as one of political self-determination. It established Kosovo as an independent and equal entity within the Yugoslav confederation and affirmed it as a constitutional political community of equal citizens and communities. It rejected Serbia’s 1989 constitutional amendments and stipulated that the Assembly and the political community would be publicly referred to simply as Kosovo. Kosovo refused to be treated as a subordinate province and instead sought recognition as an independent and equal entity,” she said.

 Meanwhile, Acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti described the July 2, 1990 Declaration as the legal and normative proclamation of the Republic of Kosovo. He said that the act, adopted in Pristina and followed by subsequent constitutional and political developments, marked the beginning of the Republic of Resistance and laid the foundations of Kosovo’s statehood.

 “Without the first Republic of Kosovo—the one established in 1990 and developed throughout the following decade—we would not have been able to establish the independent Republic of Kosovo in 2008, the state we have today. We belong to a generation of politicians that is fully aware that nothing began with us and nothing will end with us. Many came before us, paving the way and working, committing themselves, and making sacrifices so that we could continue the journey,” he said.

 Ilaz Ramajli, the chairman of the delegates who voted for the Constitutional Declaration on July 2, 1990, said that seeing an independent Kosovo today convinces him that the declaration was far more than merely a legal act.

 “This journey was strengthened by the resistance of the entire people, the sacrifices of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), and the decisive support of our international friends, particularly the United States. Together, these elements form the unbreakable links in our history of freedom. Today, as we remember those events, we feel pride but also responsibility toward the younger generations to know this history—not to remain prisoners of the past, but to build the future upon the values that united us then: freedom, democracy, unity, and responsibility toward the state,” he added.

 The Constitutional Declaration of July 2, 1990, was adopted by the then-members of the Kosovo Assembly outside the Assembly building in Pristina after Serbian authorities prevented them from entering the premises.

 With this act, Kosovo declared itself an equal entity within the Yugoslav federation, opposing the revocation of its autonomy by the regime of Slobodan Milošević. The declaration is regarded as one of the founding acts of Kosovo’s statehood and paved the way for the adoption of the Kaçanik Constitution on September 7, 1990.