Bar’s Krajina cannot become a city municipality: ministry rejects Gjeloshaj’s request

Krajina of Bar cannot become a city municipality — that is the answer the Ministry of Public Administration gave to the newspaper Vijesti regarding the request of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development Nik Gjeloshaj (Albanian Forum), who at the end of September asked Prime Minister Milojko Spajić to start a dialogue and prepare legal, economic and territorial analyses for the formation of the Krajina city municipality.

According to the ministry, which is headed by Gjeloshaj’s party colleague Marash Dukaj, the request cannot be realised because the conditions of the Law on Local Self-Government are not met. The law (Article 37) provides that a city municipality is established only by the statute of the Capital or of a city with over 40,000 inhabitants — while Bar has the status of a municipality, not a city.

“A city municipality is not a separate unit of local self-government, but a form of exercising self-government in part of the territory of the capital or of a city,” Dukaj’s cabinet explained to Vijesti, adding that only once the conditions are met — city status and the demographic condition of over 40,000 inhabitants — can the institutionalisation of a city municipality be considered.

Krajina consists of more than twenty villages and hamlets between Rumija and the shores of Lake Shkodra; the largest are Ostros, Muriqi and Livari. According to the 2023 census by Monstat, Krajina is inhabited mainly by Albanians: in Arbneš, Mali Ostros, Martići, Koštanjica and Tejani all registered residents declared themselves Albanians, while in Bobovište 113 of 115 residents are Albanians.

Vijesti writes that neither the municipality of Bar, headed by Dušan Raičević (DPS), nor Gjeloshaj himself answered the newsroom’s questions about this initiative. Meanwhile, the president of the local assembly and European Alliance MP Branislav Nenezić reacted, saying that through “perfidious and hidden initiatives, financed from outside” an attempt is being made to break coexistence in Bar and turn the city towards “politics of division”. Spajić, for his part, in an interview for Montenegrin Television at the end of last month said he had not yet seen the Albanian Forum’s requests, but warned: “The Government is not a magic lamp and I am not Aladdin.”

The request for Krajina was part of the package Gjeloshaj submitted to Spajić on 24 September on behalf of the Albanian Forum — continued implementation of the coalition agreement, greater representation and protection of Albanians’ rights, changes to the electoral law for guaranteed mandates for Albanians, greater decentralisation, acceleration of capital projects in Albanian areas, resolution of the status and territorial issues of Tuzi, Ulcinj and Krajina, and the opening of the Ckla–Zogaj border crossing. The Albanian Forum warned a few days later that it would review the form and level of its further participation in the government if no visible progress is seen in respecting the coalition agreement.