Three weeks ago we wrote that Kosovo’s government had put the Civil Code back on the table. Back then the most specific date floating around came from a sarcastic Facebook post by an opposition MP, and we told you to treat it as a claim, not a timetable.

It turns out the date is real. And it’s this Sunday.

The short version

  • The date: The government’s own legislative programme says the new Civil Code will be revised and sent to the Assembly by November 15, 2026, according to Telegraf and Kosova.info, which both reported on the programme on October 11.
  • Who’s in charge: The Ministry of Justice, led by Donika Gërvalla.
  • Why it matters to us: The 2022 draft included an article allowing a separate law to register civil partnerships between people of the same sex. That article is why it failed.
  • What hasn’t changed: Kosovo law doesn’t allow same-sex marriage or civil unions, and we haven’t seen the revised text yet.

What the programme actually says

At a cabinet meeting in October, Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s fourth government approved a programme of draft laws it wants ready for the Assembly by 2028. The Civil Code is on it, with a mid-November target. Balkan Insight reported that three bills on these issues sit on the government’s agenda from mid-November to the end of the year. One is a law on assisted reproduction that would open IVF to women regardless of marital status or relationship.

One wrinkle worth flagging. Opposition MP Eman Rrahmani’s post, covered by Uránia, said the code would go to the cabinet on November 15. The Kosovo outlets describing the programme say it should be sent to the Assembly by then. Either way, November 15 is the day to watch. A missed deadline wouldn’t be new: the code has been stuck for four years, bouncing between the government and the Assembly, as Zëri noted in October.

Who has already said no

In mid-October, the daily Zëri (republished by Korrekt Press) went back to MPs who voted against the code the first time. Most hadn’t budged:

  • Eman Rrahmani (PDK, a Vetëvendosje MP back in 2022) warned of even stronger opposition if the code comes back with the same content. He has previously said the contested provisions “will not be voted through in this parliament,” Balkan Insight reported.
  • Besnik Tahiri and Time Kadrijaj of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) said their party still opposes it.
  • Duda Balje, a Bosniak community MP, said her position hasn’t changed.
  • Labinotë Demi-Murtezi of Kurti’s own Vetëvendosje said she would wait to see what changes in the revised draft before taking a position.

That last one matters. Zëri’s list of MPs who voted against in 2022 includes 14 from Vetëvendosje. In that vote, just 28 of 120 MPs backed the code. Religious communities in Kosovo also united against the draft at the time, Kosova.info noted.

The EU angle

On November 2, Kosovo’s chief negotiator with the EU, Jeton Zulfaj, appeared before the Assembly’s Committee for European Integration. Asked by AAK’s Kadrijaj whether Vetëvendosje has the votes, he said passing the code is the Assembly’s responsibility and that he hopes for broad social consensus on the values it represents, Zëri reported. He didn’t explicitly tie it to EU requirements.

International partners have backed the code from the start. When it failed in 2022, the EU office in Pristina warned that not adopting it “will have serious negative repercussions on many aspects of the life of Kosovo citizens and businesses,” Exit News reported.

Why the whole thing is bigger than one article

It’s easy to talk about this as “the gay marriage bill.” It isn’t. Kurti has pointed out that the draft runs to 997 pages and 1,630 articles covering property, inheritance and family law. The contested provision didn’t create marriage or even civil unions directly. It allowed a separate law to register same-sex partnerships. So even a passed code is step one of two.

Kosovar LGBTI groups like the Center for Equality and Liberty have long argued that partnership rights belong in the code itself, not in some future law that could stall all over again.

Our read from Pristina

We’ve lived here since September, and we’d rather under-promise than add to the noise. Nobody should be promising couples a date.

The arithmetic is still hard, and the revised text will tell us more than any speech. If the same-sex partnership article survives into the draft that reaches the Assembly, that’s a government putting its name on it. If it quietly disappears, that tells you something too.

What we’re watching this week

  • Does the draft move by November 15, and is the text published?
  • Does the same-sex partnership article survive the revision, and in what form?
  • How Vetëvendosje’s own MPs line up, starting with the ones who said they’d wait and see.
  • Kosovo’s LGBTI action plan for 2024 to 2026 expires at the end of this year, according to the UN. What replaces it is the next test.

We’ll update you the moment the draft lands.

Sources: Telegraf and Kosova.info (Oct 11, 2026); Balkan Insight / BIRN (Oct 15, 2026); Korrekt Press / Zëri (Oct 16 and Nov 2, 2026); Uránia (Oct 10, 2026); Exit News (Mar 17, 2022); Outright International. Photo: Fajar Al Hadi / Unsplash.