• COVID – 19: 139 new cases, 9 deaths (media)
• Kosovo Assembly adopts 2021 budget (media)
• Daka: These elections will be more costly (Koha)
• Kurti on new elections: People have already decided who to vote for (media)
• LDK meets today, to decide on its candidate for Prime Minister (media)
• Acting PDK leader Enver Hoxhaj to visit Albania today (media)
• “Biden will push for Association and Mini-Schengen in the dialogue” (Telegrafi)
• Pacolli’s advisor: We need to know exact date when vaccines will arrive (media)
• Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio to visit Kosovo today (media)
• Haradinaj: KSF Search and rescue unit to be deployed to Croatia (media)
• In Muslim region of Serbia, Ottoman-era mosques perish (Balkan Insight)

COVID – 19: 139 new cases, 9 deaths (media)

139 new cases of COVID – 19 and nine deaths from the virus were recorded in the last 24 hours in Kosovo. 520 persons have recovered from the virus during this time. There are 9,980 active cases of COVID – 19 in Kosovo.

Kosovo Assembly adopts 2021 budget (media)

All news outlets reported on Wednesday that members of the Kosovo Assembly adopted the 2021 budget, with 81 votes in favor. The adopted budget amounts to €2.4 billion. The extraordinary session of the Kosovo Assembly was called by the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) with the aim of adopting the budget before the Assembly is disbanded and the country heads to early parliamentary elections. Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti said the adopted budget allows for purchasing anti-COVID vaccines in the value of €40 million.

Daka: These elections will be more costly (Koha)

Kosovo Central Election Commission (CEC) President Valdete Daka said in an interview with the TV station that the recent mayoral elections in Podujevo and Mitrovica North showed that it is possible to organise elections even in a pandemic. She however added that the extraordinary parliamentary elections next year will be more costly because the Constitution provides that they must be held on a Sunday. “It would have been good to organise them in different days, but we have legal limitations in this respect. The Constitution obliges us to hold them on a Sunday. We cannot change the law or the Constitution. Certainly, it is one of the topics that should be discussed in an election reform. In the last elections [Podujevo and Mitrovica North] we learned several lessons; they were extremely well organised. There were almost no incidents. But we learned that we can organise elections even in a pandemic. These elections [parliamentary] will have a bigger financial cost,” Daka added.

Kurti on new elections: People have already decided who to vote for (media)

Vetevendosje Movement (VV) leader and former Kosovo Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, said on Wednesday that the people have already decided who they will vote for in the early parliamentary elections that will be held early next year.

“We won’t have elections for a long time. But there will be a referendum. The elections in Podujevo showed this the best. I am very optimistic for 2021,” Kurti said in an online debate.

LDK meets today, to decide on its candidate for Prime Minister (media)

The Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) leader Isa Mustafa will summon the presidency of his party today at 14:00. Members of the presidency are expected to decide today on a candidate for Prime Minister in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Acting PDK leader Enver Hoxhaj to visit Albania today (media)

Enver Hoxhaj, Acting Leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) will visit Tirana, Albania today. Accompanied by senior members of his party, Xhavit Haliti and Uran Ismaili, Hoxhaj will meet Albanian President Ilir Meta, Parliament Speaker Gramoz Ruci and Prime Minister Edi Rama.

“Biden will push for Association and Mini-Schengen in the dialogue” (Telegrafi)

Political commentator and former Vetevendosje senior member, Visar Ymeri, said in a debate on Dukagjini TV on Wednesday that U.S. President Joe Biden will coordinate more with the European Union on the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia.

Ymeri said that Brussels and the Biden administration will most probably insist on the implementation of agreements reached so far in Brussels, including the Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities. “After the Association, they will also seek regional cooperation in the form of a Mini-Schengen,” he added.

Pacolli’s advisor: We need to know exact date when vaccines will arrive (media)

An advisor to New Kosovo Alliance (AKR) leader Behgjet Pacolli, Jetlir Zyberaj said on Wednesday that the exact should be known when the anti-COVID vaccines will arrive in Kosovo. He also argued in a Facebook post that outgoing Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti must directly negotiate with the companies to purchase supplies of the vaccines “because this has already turned into a race between countries”.

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio to visit Kosovo today (media)

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio will visit Kosovo today, most news websites report. He is scheduled to visit Italian peacekeeping troops serving with KFOR and will also meet his Kosovo counterpart, Meliza Haradinaj – Stublla.

Haradinaj: KSF Search and rescue unit to be deployed to Croatia (media)

Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) leader and former Kosovo Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj, said on Wednesday that the search and rescue unit of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) should be deployed to Croatia to help after the earthquakes that hit the region for two days. “Croatia is faced with a critical situation after the earthquakes of the last two days. As a nation we have gone through these situations, we lost lives and suffered material damages, therefore, I call on Kosovo’s institutions to deploy the search and rescue unit of the Kosovo Army to Croatia,” Haradinaj said.

In Muslim region of Serbia, Ottoman-era mosques perish (Balkan Insight)

In mid-December, a group of men, some of them armed, set up a roadblock at a construction site in the southern Serbian town of Novi Pazar, where an Islamic centre was being built by the Islamic Community of Serbia.

Police intervened and the men dispersed, but the incident cast fresh light on a long-running power struggle between Muslim Bosniaks in the country and the damage it is doing to their cultural and religious heritage.

At issue that December day was control over who builds what in the name of Islam in the predominantly Muslim Sandzak region that straddles parts of both Serbia and neighbouring Montenegro.

The Islamic Community of Serbia said the armed men answered to local strongman Muamer Zukorlic, the deputy speaker of the Serbian parliament and former head of a rival Islamic authority, the Islamic Community in Serbia.

The two similarly named Communities have been at loggerheads for years, vying for control of property, funds and political patronage.

Zukorlic, who still exerts considerable control over the Islamic Community in Serbia, denied having anything to do with the roadblock, but observers of the Sandzak power struggle are unconvinced.

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