THE POTENTIAL OF NATIONAL PARLIAMENT IN THE EU LEGAL ALIGNMENT PROCESS. THE CASE OF KOSOVO

European integration, as complicated process that involves comprehensive reforms, inevitably changes a society in a variety of dimensions. It is therefore necessary to involve all segments of society from an early stage. The full involvement of the national legislative authorities can facilitate the EU integration of a country. Recent literature proves that national parliaments play a crucial role in this process (Strelkov 2016; Finke and Dannwolf 2015; Stratulat 2014). However, the potential of national parliaments is largely unused in some candidate and potential candidate countries to join the EU. The aim of this article is to analyse the role of national parliaments in candidate and potential candidate countries by focusing on the case of the Kosovo parliament in comparative way. A comparison in some aspects is made with role national parliaments of Croatia and Slovenia as EU and ex-Yugoslavia countries, during their European integration process. The findings indicate that the potential of the Kosovo parliament is unused due to the limited capacity available for the verification of the alignment of Kosovo legislation with acquis.