Women demand European Day leave as official holiday

The Women's Academy for Leadership through a protest, attended by a very small number of women entrepreneurs, demanded from local institutions that Europe Day or May 9th take it off the official holiday list.

These women leaders of 2017 came out of NDI and USAID from Women's Week carried these <x0 inscriptions in their hands Stop Kosovo isolation”, “EU opened the door for Kosovo”, “We are still waiting”.

Sunday Rama, a member of the Women's Academy of Leadership, has considered it unreasonable to have a holiday on Europe Day, according to which the day should be celebrated through activities.

She then added that local institutions should work because of numerous and particular impasses in the process of obtaining visa liberalisation.

“Today we have organized a symbolic action against May 9th Day, which is celebrated as an official holiday where our institutions are on vacation. We consider it unreasonable to be fired today, we think that we should celebrate this holiday with certain activities, but not also be fired, institutions should work, because we are the most isolated country in the world where Kosovo citizens do not enjoy free movement as a result of blocking the visa liberalisation process. We are witnesses to what the government has failed to meet even a criterion that is envisioned by the European Union and which is the fight against corruption, so far no adequate measures have been taken to combat corruption”, Rama said.

It has asked local institutions leaders to draw it off the list of official Kosovo holidays.

According to Beryta Abbas, the students are the ones who are mostly suffering from visa liberalisation, since they are isolated to study abroad.

“They also face isolation, the many opportunities students have to study abroad where they win various scholarships, but they are also admitted to different seminars and conferences abroad are cancelled and unable to begin procedures towards” embassies, she has stated.

Ahaz also said that the even worse situation for students in Kosovo made Kosovo's expulsion from ECAR, where now even students' diplomas are at risk of being recognised by other European countries.

The announcement of Europe's Day as an official holiday has also been considered by the entrepreneurship woman, Sannie Hoxha, who said that as a result of the lack of visas many projects are being blocked.

I think it's a big mistake that we rest today instead of working, the private sector today works, the public sector is resting I don't know why we should fire when we don't have conditions like Europe, we don't have visa liberalisation we can't go where we want to go, we have many different projects that we want to move forward but because of visas we wait in line and we can't reach the point where we think of<1>, Hoxha said.

According to her, numerous official holidays in the country are negatively affecting students who are missing many classes.