Visa liberalisation in the hands of politicians

They call on the Kosovo leadership not to miss the opportunity for Kosovo citizens to move freely without visas this year.

Africa Hoti, professor of International Law at the University of Pristina, tells Radio Free Europe that visa liberalisation is in the hands of Kosovo leadership.

“For liberalisation we have not missed the chance as long as we carry out our tasks which have been repeated and repeated dozens of times and in the hope that we're finally giving them solutions, I'm talking about demarcation, association and other criteria such as fighting organised crime and corruption”, says Hoti.

Since May 2016, the European Commission had proposed to the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament, lifting visas for Kosovo citizens, and putting Kosovo on the list of free circulation countries.

At that time, Kosovo had only two more criteria: ratification of border demarcation with Montenegro and fighting organised crime and corruption to get final approval for visa liberalisation.

But political spectrum disputes cause this demarcation agreement not yet to be ratified in the Kosovo Assembly.

Jehona Lushaku Sidriu, political affairs analyst in a proposal for Radio Free Europe, says political leadership problems have been reflected in the loss of cases Kosovo has had for visa liberalisation.

“We are just missing, the delay itself represents rational losses of three years where we have made a futile debate about demarcation over a technical issue which should be a closed debate and not spend time. Otherwise, de facto we've missed the chance to try it at”.

Subsequents from friendly states have lost patience with the leadership of Kosovo due to a lack of demarcation. Now there is a very recent case for demarcation to be approved in record time to discuss visa liberalisation during this year”, says Lushak dealt with Sadriu.

International mechanisms aimed at Kosovo leaders to ratify the border demarcation agreement with Montenegro have increased in recent weeks.

A constant call is making Minister of European Integrations in the Government of Kosovo, Gift Hoxha. She has said a political consensus must be found in order for the demarcation agreement with Montenegro to be ratified as soon as possible.

The sooner we ratify the demarcation, the sooner we will enjoy free movement. We must complete our international obligations. The government is committed to this and I believe that in the coming weeks this movement will be made, because the time is running for 2018 to be a year of free movement for our citizens, Hoxha said.

The border demarcation agreement with Montenegro was signed in August 2015 in Vienna. As such, this agreement was ratified by Montenegro's Assembly.

As long as Kosovo's lack of ratification is linked to domestic objections from a part of the political spectrum, which estimates that by means of this agreement, Kosovo has lost over 8 thousand hectares of land.