4 hours agoEP official sends a letter to German Presidency, urges visa liberalisation for Kosovo
Periskopi(6 years ago)
(6 years ago)European Parliament member and Rapporteur for Kosovo Violet von Cremon-Taubdel has sent a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, urging them to put Kosovo's visa liberalisation agenda on the agenda of the European Union during the German presidency since 1 July. [...]
According to European Western Balkans, the letter was signed by 32 eurodeputes.
For the moment, Kosovo is one of the few remaining European countries whose citizens cannot travel freely to the Schengen zone without visas. However, it no longer depends on Kosovars. The process to achieve visa liberalisation is supposed to be based on objective criteria, which, as announced by the European Commission, was fulfilled in July 2018 -- exactly two years ago,” was quoted as writing von Cremon.
As it said further, she stressed that the Council's past four presidencys did not address this issue and voiced hope that Germany would solve this problem because of its ties and commitments to the Western Balkans.
Von Croamon added that there are definitely still problems in Kosovo, such as organised crime and groundless asylum applications, but she stressed that EU institutions have made it clear several times that this would not be an obstacle to visa liberalisation.
“Standards have been met by Kosovo. They've done their homework, now it's our turn to keep our promise. We are losing our credibility when a third country does what we ask of them, but they don't get what we promised them”, wrote Von Croamon.
She recalled that the European Parliament has supported the issue several times and included it in the recently adopted enlargement resolution, which was supported by a crushing number of Eurodeputs.
