About 350 thousand visa applications in 4 years, Kosovars still isolated

According to data published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the report, titled “The extensive 2013 migration procedure → 2017”, which as a source has the Schengen Visa Information System, in four years, is said to have registered 337,322 general visa requirements.

This information includes the 2013 é 2017, except for 2014 for which data is missing. The data for 2018 has not yet been published.

Germany leads with the largest number of Schengen visa requirements, made up of Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Slovenia and other states.

Of the total number of Schengen visa applications, positive decisions or visas issued are about 80 per cent, until only 20 per cent of applicants have been rejected.

A Kosovo citizen, application and receiving a Schengen visa spends time and money. Likewise, the outcome of the visa wait is not always positive until the expenses are returned to the applicants.

Verona, an English language professor, shows that she has applied many times to be equipped with Schengen visas. She says she has never been denied visas for any state she has applied to, but according to her, the procedures have taken time and have been difficult.

I don't tell you, but I apply for visas in any of the European Union states almost every year. I've been applying for visas in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, mostly has been issued for three months. I've usually asked for a tourist visa, since I've wanted to visit my relatives and travel these places. It's a major victim, documents that are required in many cases are unnecessary but that you have to have, if you don't have those documents that require them to turn down your” visa, she says.

To be equipped with a Schengen visa, citizens are forced to spend money, which Verona says are not small sums.

And then there's the spending, I'm not talking about spending when I go out of the country that they're understood, but about the expenses I have in completing documentation, time, and every visa has the price. The price I paid for a visa was mainly 30 euros, but for several countries for London it has cost 130 euros. The worst thing is that sometimes I applied for a one-year visa, but I've only been issued visas for as many days as I've had to stay in that country”, she points out.

During the four - year period, according to Interior Ministry data, the number of requirements for Schengen visas was linear, increasing by 2 percent compared to 2017 to 2013.

The year 2017 had marked the largest number of visa requirements and at over 90 thousand applications.

Taulant Kryeziu from the Kosovo Institute for European Policy (EPIK) tells Radio Free Europe that the large number of visa citizens' demands has implications both economic and social.

The visa application procedure is extremely tiresome for the country's citizens. The large number of documents required to be equipped with a Schengen visa and high costs have large implications, both financial and administrative. The images we see at the embassies, with the large number of citizens waiting to hand over visa documentation to any of the embassies of EU countries, are degrading, we've experienced each of them since we had to have a visa. These citizens deserve free movement in the Schengen area”, Kryeziu says.

Citizens who apply for visas do not always make positive decisions.

Bujar, a young man from Pristina, is one among many others who have applied for visas several times and has been rejected. He is now waiting to obtain a visa at the German Embassy in Pristina since 2017.

And how long have I applied for a working visa at Germany's embassy? I have a relative who has provided me with a job but that I have not yet managed to obtain a visa and go. I have applied for visas in various countries in the past, but I have been rejected. The money I paid for the visa has not been returned to me”, he says, adding that spending until obtaining the visa is huge.

“Time, long expectations, multiple documents required, and so forth, are difficult. It would be good to have liberalisation, at least not to waste time and beat with these receptions at” embassies, he says.

A visa spending research by Kosovo citizens was done years ago by the Institute for Advanced Research (GAP). It was stressed in this report that for over 200,000 visa applications Kosovo citizens had made for three years (2010, 2011 and 2012), they had spent about 15m euros.

For these three years alone, (2010, 2011 and 2012 Kosovars have spent about 15m euros, out of which 9m euros have been spent for direct visas at embassies, while at least 5.8m euros are other expenses related to completing visa documentation, banking and road spending”, the GAP report said.

According to this GAP report, mostly money was spent on health insurance and that amounted to about 3.2m euros.

Otherwise, the visa liberalisation process between Kosovo and the European Union began in 2012, but still as a process not finalised.

The issue of visa liberalisation for Kosovo has now remained with the ministers of European Union member states.