The change of three last governments since the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic, has left Kosovo behind in pandemic management. The total lockdown in March last year caused great damage in the economic field, due to the lockdown many small businesses went bankrupt and Kosovo’s budget was not consolidated to help them overcome the crisis caused.
Compared to the countries of the region, Kosovo, in addition to failing in economic recovery, is worse off with vaccination process too. The previous government, although declaring an agreement with Pfizer & BioTech in January this year, did not achieved it, moreover, the company Pfizer & BioTech had denied the news that the agreement between Kosovo government and Pfizer & BioTech for the supply of its vaccines in Kosovo was signed.
Such a gap of the Kosovo Government has been well exploited by Serbia, by giving the priority to Serbian citizens who live in Kosovo to be vaccinated with the Pfizer&Biotech vaccine in the very first doses to arrive in Serbia. Vaccination of Kosovo citizens by Serbia was followed immediately after the Government of Kosovo had received a donation of 1000 tests from Serbia last year, applying the carrot and stick approach, Serbia has made the introduction of vaccines in northern Kosovo completely illegal.
By vaccinating the citizens of Kosovo without any warning and agreement with the Government of Kosovo, Serbia has violated the sovereignty of the latter also in the geopolitical aspect. Similar actions that violate the sovereignty of Kosovo Serbia has done so in the past, engaging the Serbian gendarmerie to patrol within Kosovo’s borders.
Regarding vaccination, although there were high hopes that with the consolidation of the Kurti government, Kosovo will start negotiations with a company to buy the vaccine against COVID19. Statistically not only it is the last country in the region, but Kosovo has remained among the last countries in the world to have the least citizens vaccinated. Albania helped in this field by vaccinating 500 health workers with the AstraZeneca vaccine, while Kosovo has received a donation of 24,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from the COVAX program and is vaccinating older citizens over 85 years old. Kosovo does not have vaccines because of political constellations and ability to act with international companies. Similar difficulties of third world countries.
Kurti government has been criticized by the opposition for inaction in managing the pandemic even though only twenty days have passed since the formation of the new government, Prime Minister Kurti has not dealt with speeding up procedures to provide the vaccine. PM Kurti days ago had rejected the donation of Albania with Chinese vaccines being reasoned that the same is not approved by the European Medicines Agency. Rejection of vaccine donation has been interpreted in Kosovo as a political calculation by Kurti, because the Vetevendosje is running in the 2021 parliamentary elections in Albania as well.
Cases of COVID19 infection are increasing rapidly and recent measures to close gastronomy are fatal to Kosovo economy, this is due to the fact that Kosovo has not closed the border with Albania. Failure to close the border with Albania and on the other hand the closure of gastronomy in Kosovo results in a very wrong action, as a result only last weekend about 29,000 Kosovo Albanians crossed the border to spend a weekend on the Albanian coast. Such turnover is expected to increase the number of infected, while according to health experts, Kosovo does not even have the hospital capacity to cope with the number of infected which is expected to increase. The current number of active cases with SARSCOV19 is over 100,000 and over 2000 dead. The death toll in proportion to the number of inhabitants in Kosovo is large and increasing.
While the number of infections with COVID19 in Kosovo is increasing rapidly, Kurti seems to be focused on the campaign for the 2021 parliamentary elections in Albania, calling through social networks to vote for the candidates of the Self-Determination Movement there. He has also engaged several ministers from his government cabinet last weekend to take a closer look at the developments in Tirana related to the Vetvendosje electoral campaign. Dealing with the elections in Albania by Prime Minister Kurti at a time when approximately 80 citizens are dying in Pristina within a week, when Kosovo has not provided the vaccine, seems as an irresponsible bypassing the current challenges that Kosovo has. Vetevendosje convincingly won the last elections in Kosovo with 50.2% of the votes while also is running in the 2021 parliamentary elections in Albania that will be held on April 25.
