<p>PRISTINA, Kosovo — Kosovo’s new parliament holds its first session next week to discuss and likely nominate the new prime minister.</p>
<p>Acting President Vjosa Osmani decided on Monday to convene the new parliament, which resulted from the Feb. 14 election, on March 22.</p>
<p>Upon confirming the lawmakers’ vote, the parliament will likely nominate the new prime minister. </p>
<p>Albin Kurti is expected to take the post after his left-wing Self-Determination Movement, or Vetevendosje!, won 58 out of the parliament’s 120 seats, but short of an absolute majority to form a Cabinet on its own. Kurti has said he will need the votes of the non-Serb minority parties.</p>
<p>Forming the new government may be easier for Kurti’s Vetevendosje! rather than electing the new president, until May, when it needs to secure two thirds of the votes.</p>
<p>The new government will need to revive Kosovo’s economy, beat back unemployment, as well as to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, organized crime and corruption.</p>
<p>Negotiations to normalize ties with neighboring Serbia, which stalled again last year, don’t figure high on Kurti’s agenda, despite international pressure.</p>
<p>Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a decade after a brutal 1998-1999 war between separatist ethnic Albanian rebels and Serb forces, which ended after a 78-day NATO air campaign that drove Serb troops out and a peacekeeping force moved in. </p>
<p>Most Western nations have recognized Kosovo, but Serbia and its allies Russia and China don’t. Tensions over Kosovo remain a source of volatility in the Balkans.</p>
