The Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) have reopened the debate over the Citizenship Law, focusing much of their criticism on Serbs – from claims that they are “obtaining Kosovo citizenship in large numbers,” to warnings about “national security” and “war criminals,” and demands that citizenship already granted under the law be revoked.
The Self-Determination Movement (LVV) has dismissed these concerns as “artificially created,” stressing that the contested provision is not new. At the same time, however, First Deputy Interior Minister Enver Dugolli says LVV is prepared to remove the provision from the Constitution as well – provided the opposition secures the support of the Serb List for constitutional amendments.
Despite their sharp dispute over responsibility for the law, the government and opposition therefore appear to converge on one significant point: their readiness to remove a constitutional guarantee that has existed for years.
Article 31 of the Citizenship Law, however, does not mention Serbs or any other ethnic community. It recognizes the right to citizenship for citizens of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia who were permanent residents of Kosovo on January 1, 1998, as well as their direct descendants, regardless of their current place of residence or any other citizenship they may hold.
More importantly, this right was not created by the new 2026 law. It has existed in the Kosovo Constitution since its adoption in 2008. In 2012, the constitutional article guaranteeing the right was not abolished, but transferred from the transitional provisions into the Constitution’s Basic Provisions.
The latest controversy was reignited by statements from PDK MP Ganimete Musliu and AAK MP Time Kadrijaj to Ekonomia Online.
Musliu described Article 31 as “harmful to Kosovo,” claiming that it allows “all Serbs who lived in Kosovo until 1998” to obtain citizenship, as well as “all of their descendants, regardless of where they were born or where they live today.”
She also rejected the government’s explanation that the main purpose of the new law is to make it easier for members of the diaspora to reacquire citizenship.
According to Musliu, members of the diaspora had not previously faced significant difficulties, while the real purpose of the disputed provision was to allow descendants of Serbs who were in Kosovo until 1998 to acquire citizenship. She added that Albanians “know very well who those Serbs were and what their objectives in Kosovo were.”
“I continue to maintain, with the same arguments and for the same reasons, that Article 31 of this law enables all Serbs who lived in Kosovo until 1998 to obtain citizenship – and not only them, but all of their descendants as well, regardless of where they were born or where they live. Government officials have tried to explain and justify this law by saying that it was adopted to make it easier for our diaspora to obtain citizenship, but that argument does not stand because our emigrants have never faced significant difficulties in obtaining citizenship. This law was adopted to enable the descendants of all those Serbs who were in Kosovo until 1998 to obtain citizenship, and we know very well who those Serbs were and what their objectives in Kosovo were.”
“Damage and Risk to Kosovo” – Serbs at the Center of the Argument
Musliu went a step further, directly linking the citizenship issue to national security and presenting the constitution of the Assembly as an urgent matter precisely because of the possibility of changing the law.
“If there is only one reason why the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo should be constituted as soon as possible, then this law should be the main reason. Every day lost without constituting the Assembly increases the damage and the risk to Kosovo. The damage has already been done. We have information, and I believe you have received it as well, from civil registry offices reporting every day that a large number of Serbs are obtaining Kosovo citizenship.But I will repeat once again: if there is only one reason why the Assembly must urgently be constituted, it is the Kosovo Citizenship Law, so that we can immediately return it for reconsideration, amend it again and produce a law worthy of a state, one that will above all guarantee security in our country. This law has seriously harmed Kosovo, Kosovo citizenship and has seriously endangered national security.”
No publicly available data, however, has been presented to substantiate the claim that large numbers of Serbs are obtaining citizenship on a daily basis. There are no public figures showing how many applications have been approved, under which legal grounds, or the ethnic breakdown of those who have benefited from Article 31.
Musliu also proposed a retroactive review of procedures already completed.
“The only way to repair the damage that has been done is to regulate by law that the citizenship of all persons who obtained it from April 2026 until the day the law is amended again, or until a new law with new amendments enters into force, be declared invalid – or that those persons be required to undergo the procedure again under the new law.Otherwise, if those who have obtained citizenship are allowed to retain it, I believe the damage will be irreparable and Kosovo will pay the price for it in the period ahead.”
What Does Article 31 Actually Say?
The law itself does not draw ethnic distinctions and does not refer to “Serbs who lived in Kosovo until 1998.”
Article 31 of Law No. 10/L-023 links the right to a specific legal status: citizens of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia who were permanent residents of Kosovo on January 1, 1998, as well as their direct descendants, regardless of their current residence or any other citizenship they may hold.
In other words, it is not sufficient that a person simply once “lived in Kosovo,” nor does the law prescribe Serbian ethnicity as a basis for exercising the right.
Nor was this provision introduced in 2026.
The previous Citizenship Law from 2013 contained the same rule in Article 32, while administrative instructions had for years regulated the evidence required to prove citizenship of the former FRY and permanent residence in Kosovo specifically as of January 1, 1998.
A 2017 administrative instruction explicitly provided that the rule also applied to direct descendants.
An even earlier Citizenship Law, adopted in 2008, contained the same basic rule, then under Article 29.
Not Just the Law – The Right Has Been in the Constitution Since 2008
The central issue in the current dispute therefore goes beyond the new Citizenship Law.
The same right has been guaranteed by Article 155 of the Kosovo Constitution since its adoption in 2008. It grants citizenship rights to citizens of the former FRY who were permanent residents of Kosovo on January 1, 1998, and to their direct descendants, regardless of their present residence or any other citizenship.
Article 155 was originally placed among the Constitution’s transitional provisions.
In 2012, however, it did not suddenly “become” a constitutional norm, as some current statements could suggest. It had already been part of the Constitution for four years.
Through Constitutional Amendment 16 in September 2012, Article 155 was instead transferred to Chapter I – Basic Provisions – as part of constitutional amendments connected to the end of internationally supervised independence.
The same package of amendments transferred Article 156, concerning refugees and internally displaced persons, to Chapter II.
Simply deleting or amending Article 31 of the Citizenship Law would therefore not remove the constitutional right on which it is based.
Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority of all MPs, as well as two-thirds of MPs holding guaranteed seats for non-majority communities.
Proposed constitutional amendments must also be submitted to the Constitutional Court for an assessment of whether they diminish any rights and freedoms guaranteed under Chapter II of the Constitution.
In other words, this is one of the constitutional guarantees stemming from the Ahtisaari framework, which was designed, among other things, to preserve Kosovo’s multiethnic character and protect the rights of its residents and communities.
Although Article 155 is not ethnically formulated and does not apply exclusively to Serbs, the right to citizenship it establishes also encompasses pre-war residents and their descendants who now live outside Kosovo – including displaced Serbs and members of other non-majority communities.
Kadrijaj: From Serbs to War Criminals
AAK MP Time Kadrijaj presented Article 31 in even harsher terms.
She claimed that the law had been “smuggled through” under an accelerated procedure while the opposition was not in the chamber, and she too viewed the provision largely through the issue of registering Serbs as citizens.
In making her argument, Kadrijaj directly linked citizenship to wartime crimes.
“We oppose this, we strongly oppose it, because it enables everyone to register – including those who committed crimes, those responsible for persecution, those who raped women and children, those who committed massacres, as well as people who, even before the war, arrested, imprisoned and massacred the Albanian people. That is what is disputed, and that is what is wrong.”
Kadrijaj also said that AAK had checked whether the introduction of such a provision had been requested by the European Union, the Quint countries or the United States, and that, according to her, they were told it had not.
She wants the law repealed once the Assembly is constituted.
“We also demand that this law be repealed and that things return to normal, because it is not fair that today, while mass graves are still being uncovered, criminals who may have committed those crimes can now become citizens of Kosovo.Once the Assembly is constituted, this will be a specific demand – that this law be repealed and that Kosovo return to normal. Those who committed crimes have no right, those who raped and killed women and children have no right to be citizens of Kosovo.”
Self-Determination: Concerns Are “Artificial,” but LVV Ready to Remove the Provision
In contrast to the opposition, First Deputy Interior Minister Enver Dugolli rejects claims that Article 31 is a new provision.
He says the actual changes introduced by the law are different: facilitating the reacquisition of citizenship for the diaspora and creating a new opportunity for “Albanians from the Preševo Valley” who have lived in Kosovo for years but had previously been unable to obtain citizenship.
“The purpose and idea of the new Citizenship Law is to provide our compatriots with the opportunity and legal facilitation to reacquire citizenship. That was the main objective and remains the main objective – to allow our compatriots to reacquire citizenship through simplified procedures.The only change introduced by the Citizenship Law is precisely this, together with another change that has also enabled Albanian citizens from the Preševo Valley who have lived here in Kosovo for many years, but who previously had no possibility of obtaining citizenship, to exercise that right.”
Dugolli described the opposition’s concerns as “artificially created,” precisely because the disputed provision already existed in previous legislation.
Yet while rejecting the opposition’s alarm and its claims that the government opened a new route to citizenship for Serbs through the new law, Dugolli did not defend retaining the constitutional provision itself.
On the contrary, he said Self-Determination was ready to remove it if the opposition could secure the Serb List’s support for constitutional changes.
“We cannot change the Constitution through a law, because laws derive from the Constitution and constitutional provisions cannot be changed in that way. We hope they will have the will and that they will persuade the Serb List to change the Constitution and remove the article they are now concerned about.They should have been concerned when they adopted it and when they failed to intervene in time, allowing that transitional provision to become a permanent provision of the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo.They should simply persuade the Serb List to take part in constitutional changes, because this has now become a norm, a clause in the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo, which cannot be changed without amending the relevant article of the Constitution.And when they believe the time has come, and when they persuade the Serb List to participate in that process, we are very much prepared for that provision to be removed. But as it stands today, it remains exactly as it was when they themselves adopted the Citizenship Law. That is the truth.”
Sveçla in May: Hundreds of Applications by Serbian Citizens – but All Are Vetted
The controversy did not begin during the final weekend of August.
As early as May 21, LDK’s Bljerim Kuçi claimed that Article 31 could create a “demographic” and electoral impact by Serbia and open the door to property claims. He too linked the right contained in the provision to criminals and paramilitary formations.
Several days later, then acting Interior Minister Xhelal Sveçla said that there had been hundreds of applications from Serbian citizens who live or work in Kosovo seeking Kosovo citizenship.
At the same time, however, he stressed that every application was individually vetted and that the procedure only continued once all legal conditions had been met.
It was not publicly disclosed how many of those applications were specifically based on Article 31, how many had been approved, or what the ethnic background of the applicants was.
On August 14, Sveçla also announced that around 5,000 citizens in total had submitted applications between January and June for the acquisition, reacquisition or renunciation of citizenship.
That figure, however, was not presented as the number of Serbs who had obtained citizenship.
As Politicians Warn About Serbs, CASA Warns of Obstacles Facing Serbs
While part of the opposition portrays Article 31 as a provision that allegedly throws the door wide open to Serbs, and a government representative has signaled readiness to remove the constitutional basis of that right, the NGO CASA warned in May about the opposite problem.
In its analysis of the same new law, CASA said certain provisions could in practice disproportionately affect Kosovo Serbs and other non-majority communities.
CASA assessed that the law is formally ethnically neutral, but warned that new restrictions for persons born outside Kosovo, problems with civil registration, displacement, reliance on documents issued by the Serbian system and years of institutional uncertainty could produce unequal effects.
The organization therefore specifically called for Articles 30 and 31 to take precedence over more restrictive provisions in order to ensure legal certainty and equal treatment for Serbs, other non-majority communities and displaced persons.
Monitoring by the same organization in April and May also documented specific administrative difficulties: residents with unresolved civil status, differing interpretations of the rules among registration offices, problems with documentation, and cases involving adults who sought to exercise citizenship rights by descent but were instead directed toward the significantly more complex naturalization procedure.
In its final monitoring report in June, ahead of the end of the transitional period for implementation of the Law on Foreigners, CASA again warned that implementation of the new Citizenship Law must not create additional barriers, discriminatory effects or disproportionately affect members of non-majority communities and displaced persons.
CASA said that only a small number of residents had managed to fully regulate their status, while an estimated 4,000 Serbs still did not possess Kosovo documents.
This corresponds with the experience of parts of the Serbian community on the ground: the existence of a right on paper has not necessarily meant a simple path to registration and Kosovo-issued documents.
From Opposition to the Ahtisaari Plan to the “Third Republic”
Self-Determination’s willingness to raise the issue of constitutional changes is not, however, a new political direction for the movement.
LVV built much of its early political identity around opposition to international administration and to the Ahtisaari Plan for Kosovo’s status. It organized protests against the plan as early as 2007, while Albin Kurti publicly described it as unacceptable.
Kurti later openly spoke about the need for a different constitutional and political order.
As early as 2015, he referred to the idea of a “Third Republic,” a concept he forcefully returned to the public debate in September 2025, when he said Kosovo needed a “third republic” – not a new republic proclaimed by the votes of 120 MPs, but one that would be “renewed” and “reborn” in the spirit of the ideals of Albanian national revivalists.
On several occasions, he also said that the Constitution represents an obstacle to a possible unification of Kosovo and Albania, but that the obstacle was “not insurmountable,” and that with sufficient political will and a referendum law, the Constitution should one day be changed.
This time, however, the subject of the debate is no longer the abstract notion of a “Third Republic” or Kosovo’s broader constitutional architecture.
At issue is a specific article of the Constitution that, since 2008, has guaranteed citizenship rights to all pre-war permanent residents of Kosovo who were citizens of the former FRY, and to their direct descendants, regardless of their current residence or any other citizenship.
And although the constitutional provision itself makes no reference to ethnicity, the political debate over its possible removal is being conducted almost entirely through the prism of Serbs – as a security issue, a demographic issue, and even an issue of war crimes.
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