In the Kosovo Assembly, Minister of Finance Hekuran Murati presented the draft law on budget allocation for 2026 to MPs, highlighting procedural delays, budget extension limitations, and the overall structure of expenditures and revenues, reports Ekonomia Online.
The Minister underlined that the draft law was submitted within the legal deadline, but had not entered into force due to institutional circumstances.
"We all know that this draft law, according to the law, was supposed to be approved and submitted to the Assembly on October 31 of last year, which the government in office at that time had done. However, in the absence of a functional Assembly, but also in the absence of consensus after the constitution of the Assembly, this draft law was not processed and was not approved in order to be in force before January 1, when the use of this budget begins. As a result of this, we had an automatic budget extension, as provided for by the LPFMP (Law on Public Financial Management and Accountability), which is for the first two months and then, as you know, an extension for the month of March was also approved. In any case, these extensions are only enough for current expenses. As for new procurements, new projects, it is impossible to initiate procedures without having the commitment of funds. And if the allocation was made only for 3 of the 12 "of the year, so the entire year cannot be committed, let's take it for a capital project or for any other procurement regarding goods and services, for essential services if necessary," he said.
He added that the new government has decided to proceed with the draft law in its existing form to unblock budget functioning, while amendments will be addressed at a later stage.
"Therefore, seeing this situation, being aware of the emergency situation that awaits us in terms of moving forward and unblocking the budget, whether at the central level or for the municipal ones, we have proposed as the Minister of Finance to the government in the first meeting, that is, as a new government, to proceed with the draft law as it was. So, not necessarily reflecting for now the necessary changes for all priorities, but also for the structure of the government, but to do this in a later review. Meanwhile, this draft law is the draft law that was approved on October 31 of last year as foreseen by the law. The tables are similar. The only thing that changes has to do with the 13th salary, which is foreseen not at the end of the year but to be done at the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, the other issue that is foreseen also has to do with the change or the possibility of changing the tables in the law regarding the departments at the moment when the government "The government regulation is adopted and the division of tasks and scope of action of each of the departments or ministries is defined or determined. And this work is left to be done later through Article 11, paragraph 5 specifically," he emphasized.
Regarding the content of the budget for 2026, the minister presented the full expenditure structure and funding sources.
"Regarding the budget in question, it is a budget where the spending limit is approximately 4 billion euros (or 3 billion and 967 million euros). These expenditures are divided into the following categories:
Salary and allowances: 980 million euros.
Goods and services: 545 million euros.
Subsidies and transfers: 1 billion and 358 million euros.
Capital expenditures: 998.4 million euros (of which 897 million from the regular budget and 100 million from the investment clause).
Regarding the source of funding, total budget revenues are 3.64 billion euros:
Tax revenues: 3.26 billion euros
Non-tax revenues: 357 million euros.
The remainder of the deficit is expected to be financed through borrowing or grants from donors.
In addition to these, it is foreseen that: The 13th salary will be added here, Work experience, which with the salary law for the first 15 years was 0.25% per year, will return to 0.5% per year for all years. Postponement of the entry into force of the progressive rate for property tax, so that this year we have a new law in consultation with the municipalities, given that these revenues go to them", he added.
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