WHO IS WHO – Glauk Konjufca: One of Kurti’s closest associates, advocate of the “Greater Albania” idea and opponent of the CSM

After the president of his party failed in his attempt to form a government, Glauk Konjufca, one of the closest associates of the Self-Determination Movement’s leader Albin Kurti, and like him an advocate of uniting Albanians into a “Greater Albania” and an open opponent of the Community of Serb Municipalities, will now try to do so himself.

Whether Konjufca, after four years of heading the Kosovo Assembly, will sit in the prime minister’s chair will be known within 15 days. Analysts are skeptical, describing his nomination as a way to buy time, but he has officially received a mandate from the president to attempt what his party leader failed to achieve.

After the party decided to propose that the president appoint him as prime minister-designate, Konjufca said he expects support from MPs of other parties to avoid new elections in December and to ensure the adoption of the budget.

“I don’t think this will be a process where we’ll seek any coalition agreement. The idea is to form a new government to avoid snap elections and to try to cooperate with parliamentary parties so that Kosovo can have a 2026 budget. If that does not happen, it wouldn’t be in Kosovo’s best interest, and that is precisely why the Self-Determination Movement proposed me as a candidate. I accepted,” said Konjufca.

A member of the Self-Determination Movement since its founding in 2005, he also served as editor of the party’s newspaper. He was first elected as an MP in 2010, and from 2011 to 2014 served as deputy speaker of the Kosovo Assembly.

In several convocations of the parliament, he was the head of the Self-Determination parliamentary group and a member of several parliamentary committees.

From late December 2019 to February 3, 2020 – less than two months – he served as speaker of the parliament, and then was appointed minister of foreign affairs and diaspora, a position he held until June 3, 2020.

He returned to the position of speaker of the Kosovo Assembly on March 22, 2021, where he remained until the start of the new parliamentary session on April 15, 2025. In the meantime, from March 22 to April 4, 2021, he also served as acting president of Kosovo until Vjosa Osmani’s election to that post.

Advocate of “Greater Albania”

Born in Pristina on July 25, 1981, Konjufca studied philosophy at the University of Pristina. During his studies, he was deputy chairman of the student organization “Center for Rights.”

His views align with those of Albin Kurti, as in 2012 he told Deutsche Welle that he supports the unification of Albania and Kosovo to form “Greater Albania.”

“The national unification of Kosovo and Albania is the undeniable right of the Albanian people, unjustly divided by history,” he said at the time.

As speaker of parliament, Konjufca openly advocated expanding Kosovo’s sovereignty and took a critical stance toward the dialogue with Serbia mediated by the EU.

He publicly supported Kurti’s claims about the bias of former EU special representative for the Serbia–Kosovo dialogue Miroslav Lajčák, asserting that Lajčák’s positions were consistently aligned with Serbia’s interests and unfavorable to “Kosovo’s national interests and statehood.”

He claimed that it appeared as though the EU envoy “was siding with Serbia” and presenting positions “from Serbia’s point of view.”

He also argued that Kurti’s statements about Lajčák’s “unilateral” actions could not be called accusations, as described by the European Union.

After the February parliamentary elections, Konjufca was not a candidate for speaker of the Kosovo Assembly. The party initially nominated then Minister of Justice Albulena Haxhiu, but as she failed to secure the required votes, Self-Determination later proposed Dimal Basha.

It soon became clear why – Kurti had envisioned Konjufca as the next minister of foreign affairs and diaspora in his proposed government.

Throughout his political career, Konjufca has shown readiness to cooperate with all political entities except the Serb List, which earned him respect among most Albanian political parties in Kosovo, and even opposition MPs have mentioned him as an acceptable candidate for speaker of parliament.

However, Kosovo media have noted a shift in his stance.

Although several years ago he stated that the Serb List could not be excluded from participation in the Kosovo government due to constitutional provisions, both he and Self-Determination now hold the opposite view.

He once declared that the “Serb List cannot be excluded from government participation,” explaining that “since Goran Rakić is deputy prime minister, nothing can be done about that – he has the votes, and the Constitution says the Serb minority must have representation,” adding that “Kurti cannot appoint whomever he wants, but only those proposed by the Serb representatives.”

Today, that position is completely opposite to the one advocated by Self-Determination, and recently Konjufca stated that “the Kosovo Constitution gives no supremacy to the Serb winning party regarding the Assembly Presidency.”

Demanded Recognition of Kosovo in Exchange for Forming the CSM

Konjufca has demanded recognition of Kosovo as a condition for establishing the Community of Serb Municipalities (CSM), since two years ago he said at a press conference that the initial idea of the Serbia–Kosovo normalization agreement was that there would be no creation of the CSM without mutual recognition.

“There is only one possible key for progress in the dialogue – the Community together with recognition, otherwise there will be no progress in the dialogue,” said Konjufca, adding that Kosovo must find a way for the CSM to be consistent with the Constitution and not undermine the legal order.

During a visit to Tirana in June 2022, he said that the CSM must not be established and that Kosovo needs coordination with Albania.

In talks with then-speaker of the Albanian parliament Gramoz Ruçi, he said that close coordination with Albania was necessary to prevent “a harmful agreement for Kosovo within the dialogue framework.”

He stressed that for Kosovo it would be a loss to create any kind of Serbian territorial entity within Kosovo that would be under Belgrade’s control.

“This is our joint struggle. We have common interests, because we are one people. I think we should have a common policy as well,” said Konjufca at the time, adding that the Community of Serb Municipalities must never be formed.

Supporter of the KLA

Unlike his successors in parliament, Konjufca has never hidden his support for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

He believes that “the most glorious part of the new history of Kosovo is the KLA war.”

“I believe that the most glorious part of the new history of Kosovo and our nation is our KLA war and the fall of more than 14,000 martyrs during the last war in Kosovo. Without the sacrifice of those martyrs, the freedom of the people and the independence of the state would not have been possible. As long as there is a living Albanian nation, they will be honored,” he stated.