Prime Minister of Kosovo, Isa Mustafa, will travel to Brussels next week where he is expected to present a new request regarding visa liberalisation for Kosovo. Mustafa is expected to urge the EU to grant Kosovo a type of conditional visa-free travel for a period of two years during which Kosovo would work on fulfilling the criteria for finalizing border demarcation with Montenegro. If Kosovo institutions fail to ratify the border demarcation by that time, the EU could reintroduce the visa regime. Mustafa has said he discussed the issue with the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and the German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, with the latter saying the request would be taken into consideration.
However, EU integration experts in Pristina are skeptical Mustafa’s request would work. Besa Shahini said it is unlikely the request would encounter support from the EU and even if it did, it would still take a lot of time before people of Kosovo would be able to travel to Europe without visas. Meanwhile, Imer Mushkolaj said this request should have been put to the EU much sooner and that he didn’t believe it would be approved by the EU.
