Albin Kurti
Albin Kurti is a Kosovo Albanian politician who has been serving as Prime Minister of Kosovo since 2021, having previously held the office from February to June 2020. He came to prominence in 1997 as the vice-president of the University of Pristina student union, and a main organizer of non-violent student demonstrations of 1997 and 1998. Kurti then worked in Adem Demaçi's office when the latter became the political representative of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Kurti has been a member of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo since 2010 in three consecutive legislatures.
Life and career
Early life
Albin Kurti was born on 24 March 1975 in Pristina, Kosovo of SFR Yugoslavia. Kurti's father, Zaim Kurti originates from an Albanian family from the village of Sukobin in Ulcinj Municipality, Montenegro; an engineer, he moved to Pristina in search of employment. Kurti's mother, Arife Kurti is a retired elementary school teacher, born and educated in Pristina. Kurti also has two brothers, Arianit and Taulant. Kurti finished his elementary and middle education in Pristina. He graduated university in 2003 in Telecommunications and Computer Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Pristina.Kosovo War
Kurti first came to prominence in October 1997, as one of the leaders of the student protests in Kosovo. Albanian students protested against the occupation of the University of Pristina campus by the Yugoslav police. The occupation had started in 1991 and had led to ethnic Albanian academic staff and students having to use alternative locations for their classes due to them being barred from using university premises by Serbian law. The protests were crushed violently, but the students and Kurti did not stop the resistance and they organized other protests in the following months. In July 1998, Kurti was the assistant of the political representative of the UÇK, Adem Demaçi. These actions made him a target of the Yugoslav police.In April 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Kurti was arrested and severely beaten by Yugoslav forces. He was first sent to the Dubrava Prison, but as the Serbian army withdrew from Kosovo, they transferred him to a prison in Požarevac on 10 June 1999. Later that year, he was charged with "jeopardizing Yugoslavia's territorial integrity and conspiring to commit an enemy activity linked to terrorism" and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Kurti was released in December 2001 by Yugoslavia's post-Milošević government after being pardoned by President Vojislav Koštunica amid international pressure. Since his release, he worked outside party politics in Kosovo but was a severe critic of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo and of corruption. He organised non-violent protests in support of the families of those whose relatives disappeared in the war, and in favor of Kosovo's self-determination. On 23 April 2003 Kurti graduated with a degree in Computer and Telecommunications Sciences from the University of Prishtina. He was an activist for the Action for Kosovo Network, which was formed in 1997 as a movement focused on human rights and social justice, education, culture and art.
Vetëvendosje
On 12 June 2005 AKN activists wrote the slogan "No negotiations, Self-Determination" on the walls of UNMIK buildings. The police, with the help of UN Police, arrested, jailed, and convicted hundreds of activists, including Kurti. AKN then changed its name to the Self-Determination Movement. Vetëvendosje demanded a referendum on the status of Kosovo, stating "only with a referendum as a use of international right for self-determination, can we realise a democratic solution for Kosovo, instead of negotiations which compromise freedom".In February 2007 Vetëvendosje organized a protest against the Ahtisaari Plan, which according to them divided Kosovo along ethnic lines and did not give the people of Kosovo what they were striving for. The protest turned violent and the Romanian UN Police killed two unarmed protesters and injured 80 others with plastic and rubber bullets. Kurti was arrested. He was detained until July 2007 and then kept under house arrest. Amnesty International criticised the irregularities in his prosecution. He was eventually sentenced to nine months. Kurti was an advocate of "active nonviolent resistance".
Vetëvendosje joined the political spectrum of Kosovo by running in the elections of 2010 for the first time. Albin Kurti was the candidate for prime minister, though Vetëvendosje only scored 12.69% and won 14 out of 120 seats in the assembly, becoming the third political force in the country. Vetëvendosje criticized the Brussels Agreement between Kosovo and Serbia. The Vetëvendosje MPs, including Kurti, were escorted out of the parliament by police for disrupting the session of the assembly.
Kurti ran for prime minister again in the following elections in 2014, but Vetëvendosje was third again, only gaining 16 seats. Vetëvendosje and Kurti personally were involved in the protests within the parliament that earned international attention by setting off tear gas in the parliament on multiple cases.
In the 2017 election Vetëvendosje doubled in size, becoming the biggest political party in Kosovo and winning 32 seats ; his party took 200.135 votes. They were still defeated by the big PANA coalition that took 245.627. Albin Kurti became the most-voted politician in Kosovo. During this term, Kurti was the leader of the opposition and Vetëvendosje managed to put strong pressure on the government in coordination with the other opposition party, LDK. On 3 January 2018, Kurti was sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison on probation for his role in setting off the tear-gas in 2015.
Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj resigned in July 2019, taking Kosovo to early elections in October 2019. In the elections that followed, Kurti's Vetëvendosje won the largest share of the electorate with 221.001 and remained the primary political force in Kosovo, with Kurti's share of votes increasing further in comparison to 2017. He became Prime Minister of Kosovo in early February 2020.
Following the 2019 Albania earthquake, Kurti visited Durrës to survey the damage and stressed the importance for institutional cooperation between both Kosovo and Albania.
On 18 March 2020, Kurti sacked Interior Minister Agim Veliu due to his support for declaring a state of emergency to handle the coronavirus pandemic, which would have given power to the Kosovo Security Council chaired by Hashim Thaçi. The Democratic League of Kosovo, the junior partner leader of the coalition, filed a no-confidence vote motion in retaliation for the sacking, and on 25 March 82 members of the Kosovo Assembly voted in favour of the motion, and Kurti's cabinet becoming the first government to be voted out of power due to disagreements regarding the coronavirus pandemic.
The Kurti cabinet continued as a caretaker government, until 3 June 2020, when Avdullah Hoti was elected as the next Prime Minister.
On 26 January 2021, Kurti was barred from running in the 2021 Kosovan parliamentary election by Kosovo's election complaints panel, as he had been convicted of a crime less than three years prior to the election. In spite of this, the party went on to win by a landslide with 50.28% of the vote.
Kurti's party won a plurality of seats following the February 2025 parliamentary election, leading to political deadlock in the Assembly. Another election was held in December 2025, where his Vetëvendosje won a third term by winning more seats.
Premiership
On 3 February 2020, Albin Kurti was elected Prime Minister of Kosovo with 66 votes in favor and 10 abstains, 34 opposition MPs boycotted the vote and left the Kosovo assembly building.One of the first decisions by Kurti and his cabinet was to repeal the unpopular pay raise awarded to ministers by the preceding Haradinaj government and return salaries to their previous amount. As a result, the Prime Minister's monthly wage set at €2,950 will return to €1,500 for Kurti.
As part of his government's policy platform, Kurti seeks to introduce a three-month period of military conscription service in Kosovo, viewing it important to the country's defence.
Kurti was elected Prime Minister of Kosovo for a second time on 22 March 2021 with 67 members of the assembly voting in favour and 30 members against.
Policies
Economy
According to the 2024 report by the International Monetary Fund, Kosovo's economy remained "resilient" during Kurti's term, recording real GDP growth of 3.3% in 2023 and a projected 3.8% in 2024. The Swiss Federal Department for Foreign Affairs' economic report noted that, although the GDP growth had slowed down from 4.3% in 2022 largely due to weaker net exports, increased public investment and a further rise in remittances provided "positive momentum". After peaking at 11.6% in 2022, inflation averaged 4.9% in 2023. To mitigate the impact of high costs, Kurti's government introduced a fiscal support package worth 4.3% of GDP, including energy subsidies and price controls on petroleum products. Revenues grew by 9% to €2.86 billion, while capital expenditures expanded by 40.8%. As a result, Kosovo recorded the strongest pace of fiscal consolidation among the emerging European economies, reducing the deficit to 0.2% of GDP and public debt to 17.5% of GDP, the lowest level in the Western Balkans. Under Kurti's administration, ICT services exports grew by nearly 36%, travel services grew by 17.7% and the agriculture sector grew by 3.3% in 2023.Inflation decelerated further to 2% year-on-year in early 2024, while Kurti's fiscal policy was described as "prudent". The IMF noted that all program targets and structural reforms under Kosovo's Stand-By Arrangement were met, including improvements in tax compliance, public investment management and financial sector governance. Kosovo also received its first sovereign credit rating in 2023.
According to the IMF's 2025 report and the World Bank's 2025 report, Kosovo's economy actually grew by 4.4% in 2024, which was higher than the projected growth given a year earlier. Growth in 2025 was projected at 4% by the IMF and 3.8% by the World Bank, while inflation fell to 1.6% in 2024 before stabilising at around 2%. The fiscal deficit and public debt remained low due to the government's economic policies, supported by higher tax revenues and improved fiscal management.
In March 2025, Kosovo became an official donor to the World Bank's International Development Association with a $1.4 million contribution, joining the community of 78 countries that both borrow from and contribute to the fund. This contribution was made possible by Kosovo's steady economic progress since its independence.