Ten days ago we wrote that Kosovo’s midnight presidential vote gave the Civil Code its window back. This week, the government climbed through it.

In the Assembly, Prime Minister Albin Kurti argued for a full overhaul of Kosovo’s civil law, and an opposition MP promised that the part about same-sex couples would never get through. Here in Pristina, it’s the first time in months the question has been argued out loud on the floor, with dates attached.

The short version

  • What happened: Kurti clashed with Eman Rrahmani, an MP from the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), over the stalled Civil Code and a proposed law on medically assisted reproduction, Balkan Insight reported on October 15.
  • The timeline: Three bills on these issues are on the government’s legislative agenda from mid-November to the end of the year. A working group at the Ministry of Justice was set to meet the following week.
  • What’s at stake: The draft Civil Code would pave the way for legally recognising same-sex civil unions through a separate law. The reproduction bill would let women access IVF regardless of marital status or relationship.
  • What hasn’t changed: Kosovo law doesn’t allow same-sex marriage, and neither bill has passed.

What Kurti said

Kurti’s pitch was about the whole code, not two lines of it. Kosovo needs a “comprehensive reform of civil law,” he told MPs, to give people legal certainty over property, family relations and inheritance, according to Balkan Insight. He pointed out that the draft runs to 997 pages and 1,630 articles, and asked the Assembly to judge it as a whole rather than fixating on one or two articles.

On the reproduction law, he said the wish to become a parent “should be treated with understanding and respect by the state.”

What the opposition said

Rrahmani accused the government of “disregarding traditional family values.” He objected to two paragraphs that he said could permit marriages between men and allow women to become mothers without a father, and said they “will not be voted through in this parliament,” Balkan Insight reported.

Rrahmani knows the code well. He was an MP for Kurti’s own Vetëvendosje in 2022, when the draft first fell, before switching to the PDK.

A few days earlier, he had posted what he presented as the government’s own schedule. According to Uránia, which covered the post on October 10, he wrote sarcastically that “for those of you who want men to marry men and women to marry women,” the Civil Code would go to the cabinet on November 15, followed by the assisted-reproduction bill on December 30 and a civil status bill regulating legal gender changes on December 31. Uránia reported no response from the government, and we haven’t found official confirmation of those exact dates. Treat them as his claim, not a timetable.

Why this code keeps stalling

Some background, because the history explains the nerves:

  • 2022: The Assembly rejected the draft Civil Code at first reading, largely over a provision allowing separate legislation on same-sex civil unions (Uránia; Balkan Insight). Some of the votes against came from inside Vetëvendosje.
  • Since then: The code has sat stalled. As of February 2026, Outright International reported, the Assembly still hadn’t adopted it.
  • 2025 to October 2026: Repeated snap elections and a presidential standoff meant there was barely a working parliament to vote on anything, as we covered last week.

Worth being precise about what the code does and doesn’t do. It wouldn’t create same-sex marriage. Kosovo’s constitution recognises the right to marry and create a family in accordance with the law, and the draft would open the way to civil unions, with a separate law needed to set out what rights come with them. Kosovar groups like the Center for Equality and Liberty have long argued that partnership rights belong in the code itself rather than being pushed into a later law.

The IVF bill matters too

The second fight is about who gets to start a family.

The government sent the Law on Reproductive Health and Medically Assisted Fertilisation to the Assembly in January 2023, according to Balkan Insight. It passed a first reading, then failed at second reading in 2024. Under the draft:

  • Women would be eligible for IVF regardless of marital status, and regardless of whether they’re in a same-sex or heterosexual relationship.
  • Kosovo would get public IVF services and a public bank for reproductive cells.

Right now, women who want these treatments have to pay private clinics or go abroad. For lesbian and bi women, and for single women of any orientation, this bill would be the difference between a public service at home and a flight and a bill somewhere else.

Our read from Pristina

We’ve been living here for five weeks, and two things can be true at once.

The arithmetic is still hard. Kurti’s majority is thin, the 2022 rebellion came partly from his own benches, and the man who now leads the opposition charge on this used to sit on those benches. Nobody should promise couples a date.

But this is also the most concrete the Civil Code has looked in a long time: a prime minister defending it on the floor, a working group meeting, and the bills on an agenda with an end-of-year horizon. The opposition is already campaigning against two paragraphs, and you don’t fight paragraphs that aren’t coming.

What we’re watching

  • Whether the Civil Code actually reaches the cabinet in mid-November, and whether the same-sex union provisions survive in the version that does.
  • The IVF bill’s second attempt at second reading.
  • The civil status bill on legal gender changes, which so far rests only on Rrahmani’s account of the schedule.
  • Kosovo’s LGBTI action plan for 2024 to 2026, which expires at the end of this year. A stable government writing a stronger successor would say a lot.

We’ll keep reporting from here until we move on to Podgorica in December, and keep checking every date against something more solid than a sarcastic post.

Sources: Balkan Insight / BIRN (Oct 15, 2026); Uránia (Oct 10, 2026); Outright International, Kosovo; ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map, Kosovo. Photo: Rexhep Ibrahimi / Unsplash.