The European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) voted against beginning of negotiations on the liberalisation of visas for citizens of Kosovo. The S&D Group remains strongly in favour of visa liberalisation, however this can only begin when the government of Kosovo has addressed all the outstanding issues.

However, it remains unknown if the main reason of this decision was the issue of demarcation, or also the other two conditions, the Association for Serb-majority Municipalities and judiciary independent from politics.

S&D Vice-President Tanja Fajon, who is leading on the topic in the European Parliament, initially said: “Only after ratification of the agreement with Montenegro, allowing establishment of the Association of Municipalities with Serb-majority work on finalization of the agreement on visa liberalization can start.” However, only a few hours later, at a press statement, Fajon said that Kosovo needs to finalize the agreement with Montenegro, removing the issue of the Association as a condition to continue the final process of visa liberalization for Kosovo.

“We urge the government to ratify the border agreement with Montenegro. We can then begin to work on finalising the visa liberalisation agreement,” Fajon said.