KOSOVAPRESS

The passive opposition in the Assembly addressed only 68 parliamentary questions

According to the report published today by the Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI), the Assembly of Kosovo has fulfilled only 13 percent of the legislative agenda of 2023.

According to this report, the Assembly approved 44 laws during this half year, but the vast majority of them were from last year.

Based on the findings of the KDI, the opposition has not been active enough during this spring session, as their MPs lead in terms of absences in plenary sessions, whereas out of 171 parliamentary questions, only 68 have been asked by the opposition to the executive.

The researcher at KDI, Arbër Thaçi, in the publication of this report on Wednesday, said that the spring session of the Assembly was characterized by many surprises, with various content, and many challenges.

“Many of them are not draft laws that belong to the legislative agenda of 2023. Only 17 of these are draft laws or international agreements that are included in this year’s agenda, the others belong to previous years. Therefore, we can say that in percentage, only 13 percent of the legislative plan of 2023 has been fulfilled during this session. One of the problems that we must highlight was the absence of the MPs, which has constantly caused the problem of the lack of quorum. Based on our findings, an average of 22.5 percent of MPs were absent in each session. The trends depend on the political parties, in this case the opposition parties show higher absenteeism figures. LDK has about 22 percent of MPs absence, PDK has about 19 percent, VV has 9 percent”, he said.

Meanwhile, the other researcher at KDI, Violeta Haxholli, said that the Assembly has also failed in its supervisory role towards the Government of Kosovo.

“Regarding the supervisory role of the Assembly, unfortunately the activity of the MPs during this session was not very satisfactory. In general, the MPs submitted 171 parliamentary questions to the executive, but this included questions that were repeated several times due to the absence of ministers in the sessions. The MPs of the ruling party have raised more questions. This in itself is problematic, as it shows that the opposition MPs have not been very active in submitting parliamentary questions. Thus, PDK submitted 45 questions, LDK submitted 10 questions, and AAK 13 questions. All parliamentary questions were submitted only by 38 MPs of the Assembly, whereas 82 MPs did not submit any questions at all, which is worrying”, he said.

Prime Minister Albin Kurti was the most correct in answering the questions according to the KDI, answering all of them, whereas the most irresponsible were the Minister of Internal Affairs and Public Administration, Xhelal Sveçla, who did not answer any questions, and the the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Donika Gërvalla.