By Céline Paré
23 June 2022
This day--23 June 2022--could have been a day of hope and euphoria in Kosovo. The EU-Western Balkans leaders’ meeting in Brussels was set to discuss enlargement to the Western Balkans and, for many, was also expected to officially open the door of the Schengen area to Kosovar citizens. Had European leaders made the choice of granting Kosovo visa liberalization, Kosovars would have been swept up in celebration of their newly acquired freedom. Instead, Thursday was no different than any other day in Kosovo: individuals went on with their daily lives as they awaited news from the meeting, and finished the day disappointed but not really surprised to hear that the status quo had not been changed.
Kosovo has been hoping to obtain visa-free travel since 2012, when the government in place signed the European Commission’s Visa Liberalization Roadmap which established the criteria the country should satisfy in order to receive access to the Schengen area. In the ten years after that, Kosovo endeavored to and eventually succeeded in fulfilling the necessary requirements, yet did not acquire visa liberalization. Almost four years ago, in July 2018, the European Commission confirmed that Kosovo henceforth met all conditions to accede the visa-free travel zone, and therefore recommended the swift abolishment of the visa regime. The European Parliament followed suit a few months later by similarly calling for all visa requirements to be waived for Kosovar citizens. Despite these endorsements, frequently repeated over the years, the European Council still constitutes a final barrier to Kosovo’s access to the Schengen area.
The conversations I had with Kosovar citizens in the past week revealed that the absence of visa-free travel is perceived to be the most prominent issue faced by the country and its population. The feeling of being stuck, imprisoned in their own country, imprints the lives of Kosovars who consider themselves to be “left behind” by the international community insofar as “no one cares” about Kosovo. As a result of the visa regime, Kosovo is “isolated” from the rest of the world, which impedes its economic and social development. Moreover, in the long run, it threatens Kosovar society’s well-being and stability, insofar as it fuels agitation and unrest.
On the afternoon of June 22, we sat down with representatives of Kosovo’s Ministry of Justice who introduced to us the work they carry out to support Kosovo’s progress towards EU membership. The Department of European Integration and Policy Coordination is the entity responsible for making sure that Kosovo implements the Copenhagen criteria and the provisions laid out in the Stabilization and Association Agreement. In addition, it supervises the harmonization of Kosovo’s legislation with the EU’s Acquis Communautaire. In the course of that meeting, Mr. Lulzim Beqiri, the Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, expressed frustration at Kosovo’s slow-going visa liberalization process. Kosovo “has been closed since 1999,” he stated with regret. The youth have never been able to travel outside of its borders, apart to the six countries with which it has a visa-free travel agreement – Albania, Serbia, Turkey, Macedonia, Montenegro, and the Maldives. Kosovo was given ninety-five criteria to fulfill, over twice as much as other states in the region, he remarked with bitterness in his voice. And despite meeting all of them, Kosovo is still constrained by a visa regime.
Nonetheless, Beqiri conveyed optimism about the then upcoming meeting in Brussels, asserting that “positive signals” had been received from France and the Netherlands – the two countries most opposing Kosovo’s visa liberalization. He radiated enthusiasm and anticipation, echoing the sentiment of many of the individuals we had encountered throughout Kosovo in the days before. Learning that nothing had come out of the Brussels meeting at dinner the next day felt like a punch in the gut, as I thought of all of the individuals who had shared their hopes and dreams with me being let down by European politicians once more.
At the Ministry of Justice, Beqiri had indeed reiterated what representatives of UNMIK Regional Office in Mitrovica had insinuated to us a few days earlier: that Kosovo’s visa liberalization debate is more a matter of European geopolitics than a question of internal stability and development. In that regard, it appears that the European Council’s obstruction of Kosovo’s visa liberalization process reflects not only the interplay of several domestic agendas but also an overall lack of political will from EU Member States to confer Kosovar citizens the same rights that their own nationals enjoy.
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