We had a government that was elected in early February, which meant that in the very first days we immediately had to deal with the pandemic; yet Kosovo was the first country in the region and, in fact, one of the first in Europe to undertake some very rigid measures in terms of isolation and surveillance by closing schools, restaurants, and other public places and this has helped flatten the curve for a while.

But I have to mention that we had taken over a health system which was almost destroyed – it was underfinanced, so practically in a country of almost two million, we’re talking about hospitals that had only 61 or something respirators and very few hospital beds to deal with this kind of crisis. So it was essential that these kinds of measures that may have seemed radical at the beginning were undertaken very early on and much earlier than most countries in Europe.

Nevertheless, the number is climbing – which means that these measures need to stay in place, so currently the citizens of Kosovo can spend only one and a half hours per day outside of their homes.

They have been doing remarkably well in respecting the measures of the health institutions, all of which are being proposed by health professionals and, in this regard, I think that what we are mostly proud of is not just the work of the health professionals, doctors, and nurses but at the same time we are extremely proud of the advice that these health institutions have given to the government, the politicians, and all of these were taken as is and put in place as governmental decisions and fully implemented. And this shows that how decision making was working was extremely important

What happened in the meantime, however, was a major political crisis. Kosovo is the only country in the world that overthrew its government during the pandemic for reasons that had nothing to do with the pandemic. This has, of course, affected the way how the pandemic is managed because in these very difficult times you need strong leadership and, of course, if a government is overthrown this impacts also the way how decisions related to the pandemic are implemented in practice.

So this has made the entire situation extremely difficult. To mention how this has affected our work in the parliament, we have initiated a number of pieces of legislation – including one that I have initiated, that puts forward the entire legal basis for limitations on human rights and freedoms – but we are not being able to adopt any of these pieces of legislation – be it when it comes to COVID-19 or the economic package that we need post-pandemic – because of the political crisis.

There are a number of other measures that we have undertaken and which I have been working on, together with the parliament, and they mostly focus on our relations with international institutions, starting with World Bank – which is the institution that I mostly work with – and the WHO on this regard.

The Bank not only remains one of the closest partners of Kosovo in assisting us but it has initiated and supported an emergency operation, a restructuring of the current portfolio, as well as a potential development policy financing which we are working on. One very important aspect – and I am going to finish with that – is the water emergency. There are entire regions around Kosovo that are lacking water and we are being helped by the World Bank to finance these water emergency projects because, while we are telling people to keep their hygiene and wash their hands during the pandemic, it is extremely hard for people to do that if there is no water – if there is no access to water.

So I would like to, of course, once again, extend my thanks to World Bank for all of their support and, taking into account the very big economic crisis that we will be facing in the months and years to come, I suppose, I hope that together with our government we will be able to get even more support which is absolutely necessary.