Augustin Palokaj writes in his column for the paper that at this stage, nothing is more important to the people of Kosovo than the right to travel freely to EU countries and adds that the level of visa rejection for the citizens of Kosovo has become one of the highest in the world. Only 3 percent of all the Kosovars that applied for a visa to visit EU countries were actually granted one in 2013, says Palokaj. Considering that this figure includes mostly politicians, students and people who sought medical care, it can be said that in fact travel to EU was almost impossible for the vast majority of people in Kosovo.
While there are plenty of reasons to criticize the EU and European Commission for lack of progress in visa liberalization process, the largest part of responsibility for this situation, in Palokaj’s view, is with the Government of Kosovo. “At the time when Kosovo authorities were promising quick visa liberalization, they made no serious efforts in fulfilling all the criteria”, writes Palokaj. He adds however that the criteria put to Kosovo were more difficult than to other countries in the region which already benefit from the visa-free travel to Europe.
In its recent report, European Commission made it clear that Kosovo needs to create a reliable register of court decisions taken on cases of organised crime and corruption. “This makes us even less optimistic because Kosovo has made no progress in this field and member countries can misuse this fact to punish citizens of Kosovo by not liberalizing visas”.
Even if, in the best case scenario, the following EC report due in 2015, finds that Kosovo has met all the requirements, the procedure for visa liberalization will take time as it requires the approval of the European Parliament and this is likely to be dragged to 2016, concludes Palokaj.
