Kosovo’s Political Crisis Fuels Calls For New Funding Model for Public Broadcaster

Radio Television Kosovo’s first broadcast in 1999, after the war, was loaded with symbolism, marking a return to the airwaves of Albanian-language programming for the first time since the old Radio Television Pristina was shut down in 1990 by Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia and Albanian public sector employees turfed out of their jobs.

So when employees at RTK downed tools in November this year over unpaid salaries, Kosovars took notice.

Twice this year, the public broadcaster has failed to pay its roughly 700 staff, amid a funding crisis triggered by a prolonged political impasse.

Snap elections, forced by the failure of political leaders to agree on a ruling coalition following the last parliamentary election in February, will be held on December 28.