Draft Budget 2024

The Government approved the Draft Budget 2024 on October 31, 2023, while the Assembly approved it in the first reading on November 16, 2023. GAP Institute has analysed the budget allocations for the year 2024, comparing them with the year 2023.

In the preparation of the Draft Budget 2024, the Government adopted a more prudent approach to planning revenues and expenditures. This is due to the anticipated slower increase of budget revenues and expenditures, by 5% and 3% respectively, reaching the amount of 3 billion euro and 3.3 billion euro. Capital expenditures are planned to increase more than current expenditures, by 5% and 2% respectively, however, the planned increase is relatively low compared to the previous year, which was 15%. Among the main categories of current expenses, the category of salaries and allowances is planned to have an increase of 59.9 million euro or 8%, mainly due to the increase in the monetary value of the public sector salary coefficient from 105 to 110 euro.

The 2024 Draft Budget provides for 2,308 additional jobs, of which 1,793 for the central level (majority in the Ministry of Interior Affairs (Kosovo Police) and Ministry of Defense (KSF), and 515 for the municipal level.

Capital expenditures in 2024 are planned to be EUR 859.2 million, of these, about 83% are ongoing projects, and 17% are planned for new capital investment projects. The share of the budget allocated for capital investments in Gross Domestic Product has been declining since 2017. In 2021 and 2022 it remained unchanged, at 8%. In addition, the allocated budget is not fully executed throughout the year. In 2022, capital investment execution rate was 60%, while in 2023, as of September, the execution rate is 35%. This year, the value of new central level capital investments intended for specific projects in municipalities is EUR 21.8 million. Similar to last year, this year too, the government has allocated more funds to the municipalities led by Vetëvendosje (VV), where over half of this amount (59.5% or EUR 13 million) has been directed to the four municipalities led by VV (Gjilan, Kamenicë, Podujevë, and Shtime). These municipalities comprise only 14.5% of the territory and 11.6% of the population in Kosovo.

In the draft budget of 2024, an increase of 14.5 million euro is foreseen for the justice sector. Despite an increase in the budget for the health sector by 42 million euro, and for the education sector by 54 million euro in 2024, Kosovos per capita spending in these sectors remains low.

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