The paper’s columnist and Brussels correspondent, Augustin Palokaj, writes that now when the wave of migration of the people of Kosovo to EU countries has subsided, the EU wants a debate and efforts in Kosovo focus on two aspects: to repatriate those who migrated to EU over the last months and to address issues that led to the migration influx. However, Palokaj is skeptical that Kosovo politicians will undertake concrete steps to address causes of migration because they still believe that the people had no valid reasons to leave Kosovo.

The government of Kosovo has stepped up efforts for civil registration of members of the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian community, five years after launching the process. This, according to the paper, was imposed by the European Commission Progress Report which identified the issue as a precondition for visa liberalization. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Local Government Administration said the project is being implemented in cooperation with relevant municipalities and that there is an awareness campaign underway offering free registration until 15 March.

The paper reports that statement of Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hashim Thaci, that Kosovo will file a lawsuit against Serbia for war reparations, was considered as delayed, depressing and hardly feasible. For 15 years, Kosovo has not undertaken a single step that would put Serbia in front of justice for the crimes committed and for the material damages in Kosovo.

Lumir Abdixhiku writes that the seventh anniversary of Kosovo’s independence must have been the grimmest day, adding however that this was expected under the current circumstances. He writes that two mandates of the seized state were enough, and that the third one brought the exhausted Kosovo into its knees. He claims that there is coldness between the population and the government. “I do not remember to have seen a more sterile relation,” he writes adding that this lack of energy has led to the differentiation between the citizen and the state.

KTV’s editor-in-chief Adriatik Kelmendi writes that in the current situation in Kosovo where thousands are deciding to board buses in search of a better life in the EU, there is a well-organised criminal group which is surprisingly managing to easily convince people that they have to seize the opportunity right now to cross through the so-called open gate to the EU while still open. The relevant authorities - Ministry of Internal Affairs, Kosovo Police, Kosovo Intelligence Agency, EULEX – should find out who is responsible for deceiving people this way and take appropriate measures.

Publicist Halil Matoshi writes that there is a special war underway in Pristina to give ‘biblical proportions’ to the migration of people from Kosovo and thus distract the opinion from real problems Kosovo faces, namely the anti-government demonstrations. As emotional as images of people boarding the buses to get out of Kosovo are, Matoshi says Kosovo needs to demonstrate rationality and not emotionality and while it is final time to act in preventing further migration, assembly resolutions and police measures are not the right way to go about it.

Brussels-based correspondent Augustin Palokaj writes in his weekly column that the upcoming round of the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade is expected to remain the same as the previous meetings. The EU is not going to change its position on the dialogue as it believes the process so far has been quite successful. Belgrade will also remain in its positions as the Serbian Prime Minister, Aleksandar Vucic, was one of the main actors even when the dialogue was officially led by Ivica Dacic.

Kosovo government on Thursday approved the decision to send a contingent of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) for humanitarian operation in Albania, the country which is facing floods after heavy rain in the past days. The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Isa Mustafa, has announced that there is a request to send a unit of KSF in Albania to help prevent damage from floods.

Serbia’'s Minister of Interior, Nebojsa Stefanovic, stated that 290 individuals, majority of them Albanians from Kosovo, who were trying to illegally cross the border between Serbia and Hungary, have been arrested during the last 48 hours. Criminal charges are raised against 256 individuals and 50 smugglers while 15 vehicles have been confiscated.
Stefanovic stated that he will discuss the issue of the illegal emigrants and false asylum seekers with the Director of German Police.

Publicist Halil Matoshi writes that Kosovo should not weep over the young people fleeing to Europe in search of a better life as it has nothing to offer them. “Once the Republic [of Kosovo] makes them a decent offer, the decent citizens will come back,” writes Matoshi. He says that “fragile” and “unsustainable” people can only be of use to the government to use them as tools for securing more votes but they are not useful to a democratic society.