In Stalled Law, Some See Hand of Kosovo’s Islamic and Orthodox Authorities

The current government resubmitted the amendments last month, but they continue to face opposition from Kosovo’s most influential religious bodies – the Islamic Community, the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church of Kosovo.

Two political figures and the country’s Ombudsperson, Naim Qelaj, have told BIRN that this opposition has consistently swayed MPs to stall the amendments, raising questions about lawmakers’ commitment to Kosovo’s constitutional status as a secular state.

“All three main religious communities have lobbied and exerted pressure to block the adoption of the amended law,” said opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, lawmaker Xhavit Haliti.

Alma Lama, a former MP from the ruling Vetevendosje party and later the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, told BIRN: “The Islamic Community prevented the law from passing a second reading [in 2016] and caused its withdrawal from approval; the Orthodox Church has also pushed for less state control.”

The fate of the amendments “primarily reflects the failure of the secular state”, said Shehu.

The established religious communities have flexed their muscles before, most recently in 2022 when parliament rejected a draft Civil Code recognising same-sex civil unions.

Kosovo may be a secular state, Ombudsperson Qelaj told BIRN, but the handling of the Religious Freedom amendments “shows that political parties have been exposed to the influence of religious communities in exchange for preserving their votes”.

“This pattern is evident not only in this case, but also in the failure to adopt the Civil Code.”

‘We didn’t influence the vote’

The current Law on Religious Freedom, adopted the year before Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, provides no mechanism for the legal recognition of a religious community, but it does name five existing communities: the Islamic Community of Kosovo, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church of Kosovo, the Jewish Community, and the Evangelical Church.

Subsequently, these five have benefitted from tax breaks and customs waivers not available to other unrecognised religious communities.

The rest, according to a 2014 opinion by the Venice Commission, a constitutional advisory body of the Council of Europe, are prevented from “carrying out daily activities – including owning and registering property and vehicles, opening bank accounts, and paying taxes on employees’ salaries”.

This isn’t strictly true for all unrecognised religious communities. The Community of Tariqa, for example, might not have formal legal status, but has managed to open a bank account and obtain a tax ID due to what Kosovo’s Ombudsperson in 2010 called a “legal vacuum”.

Many others settle for the status of a non-governmental organisation, NGO. BIRN identified 56 NGOs as engaged in religious activities and registered mainly with the interior ministry.

“Now we have a fiscal number like all the others, and we are not concerned about recognition,” Shehu told BIRN.

Nevertheless, the United States, the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, have all called for the Law on Freedom of Religion to be amended.

Whether Shehu’s Community really does gather 300,000 followers is impossible to verify, since there is no precise data in Kosovo’s latest census. Under the amendments, it would only need at least 50 members to be recognised.

But if Shehu’s estimate is anywhere close to reality, recognising the Community of Tariqa risks dramatically reducing the sway of the Islamic Community. Adoption of the amendments would also expose the big religious communities to new financial oversight.

For its part, the Serbian Orthodox Church fears the amendments may infringe on its autonomy and give the state new ways of exerting pressure.

“We want to keep the Muslim community united,” said Naim Ternava, head of the Islamic Community.

But he denied putting pressure on political parties, telling BIRN: “We didn’t influence the vote.”

Like the Islamic Community, the Serbian Orthodox Church also denied putting any pressure on MPs, but criticised the amendments as failing to address the Church’s broader legal status.

Under Kosovo’s constitution, the amendments require a two-thirds majority in parliament as well as two thirds of deputies holding seats reserved for non-majority communities, which includes Serbs.

“Legal personality cannot be treated as a substitute for the wider guarantees required in the specific case of the Serbian Orthodox Church,” Aleksandar Radovanovic, chief legal adviser to the Diocese of Raska and Prizren, told BIRN.

The status of the Orthodox Church has long been a sensitive issue in Kosovo given its links to Belgrade, which lost control over Kosovo in 1999 at the end of a war in which Serbian forces killed thousands of Albanian civilians and forced out almost a million. Serbs account for less than 10 per cent of the Kosovo population.

“The law should include a clear safeguarding clause confirming any future guarantees and ensuring they cannot be diminished through administrative or legislative changes,” Radovanovic said. He also questioned the financial oversight in the amendments, saying such provisions could be wielded as “tools for repeated requests or selective pressure”.

“In Kosovo’s sensitive interethnic environment, this creates a significant risk of misuse, which is precisely the concern raised by the Diocese.”

Not everyone is opposed, of course.

“We have some remarks about this law, but we are not against it,” said Bishop Dode Gjergji of the Catholic Church in Kosovo. “On the contrary, it is very necessary for the legal functioning of the Catholic Church in Kosovo.”

Millions of euros

Under the proposed amendments, registered religious communities would be subjected to some financial oversight by the executive branch and reporting requirements.

The kind of money involved is clear from customs data that shows that some 12 million euros-worth of goods were imported over the past two years for religious purposes, customs free.

Islamic Community imports accounted for 2.6 million euros of that sum, while the Serbian Orthodox Church brought in goods worth 1.6 million euros, from materials for construction and restoration of religious objects to books, clothing, icons, candles, amulets, necklaces and prayer scrolls.

Religious communities also benefit from humanitarian aid, none of which currently needs to be reported.

According to data obtained by BIRN from Kosovo’s central bank and the Financial Intelligence Unit, last year the Islamic Community reported revenues of 12.1 million euros; the Serbian Orthodox Church reported 8.9 million euros in revenues and the Catholic Church in Kosovo 5.1 million.

According to data from the Kosovo Tax Administration, in one city alone – Gjakova/Djakovica – the Islamic Community has reported income of 1.8 million euros over the past three years. In total, it has 1,277 declared employees. Yet financial oversight is minimal.

The Serbian Orthodox Church has not reported employing anyone, earning anything or spending anything, while the Kosovo Tax Administration told BIRN it has “not carried out any tax inspection of religious communities”.

Qelaj, the Ombudsman, said it is precisely a reluctance to submit to financial oversight that is motivating the religious communities to exert pressure on parliamentarians.

“Our findings indicate that, in this regard, they have reached a tacit understanding,” he told BIRN.

Drilon Gashi, a theologian and former adviser to Kosovo’s parliament speaker, said the obstacles to the amendments “have come from both religious communities [the Islamic Community and Serbian Orthodox Church] and political parties, including Serbian ones”.

“In this knot of a secular state, political interests, historical fears, identity sensitivities, and a lack of political will to regulate an area left in legal fog are interwoven.”