Prishtina, 9 October, 2024
Dear Deputy Prime Ministers, Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Dear media, dear citizens,
I just came from Leposaviqi, where we were together with the Minister of Health, Arben Vitina and the director of the Gynecology Clinic, dr. Zef Ndrejaj, since the mammography will be in Leposaviq for two days to enable check-ups for girls and women, in order to raise as much awareness as possible about breast cancer, its prevention and diagnosis, going together to every municipality of our Republic. We remind you that this month also marks Pink October, as a call to raise awareness of the risk of breast cancer, where self-checks, medical visits and mammography should become part of the routine, because they are important in the early detection of this disease.
After Leposaviq, the mammography will continue towards the municipality of Viti, while earlier it was also in the northern municipality of Mitrovica. Meanwhile, during our stay in Leposaviq, together with Minister Vitia, we also saw closely a facility, a building to evaluate the possibility of her return to the maternity hospital, which meets the needs of women from Leposaviq, so that they do not need to to cross the border and travel dozens of kilometers, even over 50 kilometers to Novi Pazar, where they are then registering their babies as citizens and residents of Serbia.
During this visit, the mayor of the Municipality there, Lulzim Hetemi, the vice-mayor Marina Bogojević and the director of Health, Marina Zdravković, were with us.
And this week started with very good news, as we all know, for pensioners. Starting this month, a 20 percent increase will be applied to the Basic Age Pension; that Contributory, Full and Partial; the Disability pension, for Children and Adults; the pension for the Blind; that for Paraplegic and Tetraplegic Persons; Family, Work Invalid and Early Pension for Trepca workers.
Meanwhile, from January 2025, the pensions defined by the law for war categories will also increase, namely, the families of martyrs, invalids, veterans, members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, victims of sexual violence of war, civilian victims and their families. In addition to the 20 percent increase, for the families of the martyrs and the families of the missing of the KLA who have more than one martyr or missing family member, the calculation formula for other members will also change. From what is now 20% of the base for the second member and 10% for the others, the supplement will be calculated as 50% of the base for each other martyred or missing member, up to the level of the family with 4 or more martyrs or disappeared during the last war.
Our work to increase pensioner support does not end there. It continues even further, specifically with our work towards the finalization of the pension reform, which will ensure that those who contributed the most to this country, have the appropriate and dignified treatment.
During our governing mandate, now that we have entered the last six months, the basic pension has increased from 90 to 120, for a third, meanwhile, on the other hand, four times we have also had one-time financial support of 100 euros.
Therefore, all these increases have been made precisely to implement our program in the sense of its spirit and its value, so that those who are most in need, help you the most and first, and it also does not represent the pension reform yet, which we will do in the near future, in our next mandate.
And recently, we were also in the United States of America and Poland, where we participated in the High Level Week of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and then in the Security Forum in Warsaw. Numerous bilateral meetings with friendly, allied and partner countries have characterized our visit, to further strengthen relations and cooperation in the field of economy, technology and innovation, energy, security and defense, but we also met leaders of unrecognized countries, for to acquaint them with our country, with our history, with our democratic and North Atlantic goals as much as possible, in order to bring those countries as close as possible to recognizing our country and establishing cooperation and relations bilateral, the earlier the better, where we also presented our perspective for realizing the economic growth and democratic progress of our country.
Therefore, we intend to bring these unrecognized countries closer, and in the meantime with the countries that have recognized us, to deepen bilateral relations also in terms of economic investments, cultural exchanges and the increase in trade volume in exports and imports.
The magnificent hospitality from our diaspora in the United States of America and Poland left us with strong impressions and indelible emotions, for which I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Our emigrants continue to have a key role in the development and progress of the country and the synergy of the government and the institutions of the Republic in general with them is indispensable, in addition to being necessary, both for the present and for the future of the country.
And this meeting of the government, which is the 223rd in a row, will bring other important and convenient decisions. Today we will approve in the government the 2024-2027 Reform Agenda within the European Union Growth Plan, which will bring our country about 882 million euros. We will also examine, among others, the draft law on Payment Services from the Ministry of Finance, Labor and Transfers, the draft law on the Financing of Water Resources Management from the Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure, the one for the Central Inspectorate of Cultural Heritage from the Ministry of of Culture, Youth and Sports, as well as the request of the Ministry of Health for the payment of 22 self-financed specialists from the Presheva Valley, Republic of Albania and Montenegro.
So, since we have a lot of work ahead of us in a multi-point meeting, thank you very much for your attention, we are now moving on to the agenda for today’s meeting.
Last modified: October 9, 2024