Marmullakaj: Kosovo risks losing €100 million from Growth Plan if reforms are not implemented by year-end

Kosovo risks losing more than €100 million under the European Union’s Growth Plan if it fails to complete the remaining reform steps from the 2024–2025 period by the end of this year, according to Qemajl Marmullakaj, Senior Researcher and Program Manager at the Kosovo Law Institute (KLI). He noted that these reforms include legislative obligations that must be implemented by the Kosovo Assembly.

According to Marmullakaj, failure to implement them would mean not only losing funding allocated by the European Union, but also delaying reforms that Kosovo urgently needs.

“By the end of this year, Kosovo must complete 27 remaining steps from the 2024–2025 period, whose implementation deadline expires at the end of the year. It should be borne in mind that the Growth Plan is one of the European Union’s most innovative mechanisms, as it enables the application of EU values and the implementation of reforms that are greatly needed by citizens, while at the same time providing access to funds allocated by the EU for each reform. All 27 steps constitute legislative obligations that must be implemented by the Kosovo Assembly. If they are not implemented, we will not only lose out in terms of applying European Union values and implementing reforms that the country greatly needs, but will also lose significant funding necessary for the country’s budget, namely that of the Republic of Kosovo,” Marmullakaj told Ekonomia Online.

He singled out the Civil Code in particular, whose adoption forms part of the Reform Agenda agreed with the European Union.

He warned that failure to adopt the Code could cost Kosovo more than €6 million.

“In the event that the Civil Code is not adopted, it should first be borne in mind that, as a general principle, it is included in the Growth Plan Reform Agenda agreed with the European Union. The principles governing what the Civil Code should look like and what it should contain are also part of the Reform Agenda. Failure to implement this means that, in addition to not having civil legislation codified in a single legal act, we would also lose a certain amount of funding which, I would remind you, exceeds €6 million and is allocated specifically for the adoption of the Civil Code,” he said.

Marmullakaj stated that the value of the 27 reforms due by the end of the year exceeded €165 million, recalling that Kosovo had already lost €50 million as a result of failing to implement reforms by the June deadline.

“If these reforms are not implemented, we risk losing substantial amounts of funding exceeding €100 million. I believe that a certain number of these reforms should have been implemented one way or another,” Marmullakaj concluded.

Kosovo’s chief negotiator with the European Union and national coordinator for the Growth Plan, Jeton Zulfaj, said on Monday that Kosovo had lost €43.8 million under the Growth Plan after failing to complete six reform steps by the deadline that expired in June 2026.