Germany expected to issue 5,500 working visas for Kosovars within this year

It all becomes known in a German government response to a written question of the Liberals' parliamentary group (FDP) in Bundestag. For Albania, northern Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are projected by 4750 working visas per year - 19 per cent for each country. While the container reserved for Serbia is slightly lower, about 4250 (17 per cent), and for Montenegro 1,000 working visas have been envisioned, about 4 per cent of the container.

Meanwhile, the German government has defined the total visa contingent of up to 25 thousand working visas annually. These include only visas, according to the Western Balkans, which was renovated in 1.01,2021 and is valid until 2023. The division has been made on the basis of certain criteria, which according to the German government's response, are: the population number, the number of visas given in 2018 and 2019, and the number of visa requirements.

Very few visas during pandemic

The 2020 visa number has not been taken into account, because it has been too low. Thus, while in 2018 and 2019 the overhaul of the Western Balkans brought to Germany from about 21,000 and 27,000 workers respectively, in 2020 the number of incoming workers fell to 5188, whose majority, 4693, had arrived in the first quarter of 2020 - before the pandemic was declared and closed.

Then, only the labor force needed in the key sectors of the country's economy was allowed. According to the German government, out of 494 working visas issued with the regulation of the Western Balkans in March-December 2020, almost all have been for employees in the health sector or truck drivers. In this period only 16 working visas have been given in Pristina on the basis of this regulation and in Skopje 59. The largest number of working visas, according to the Western Balkans regulation, at this time was given at the Tirana Embassy: 202. It is expected that the Western Balkans' visa contingent will not be used entirely even in 2021, as long as rules of limited movement are valid because of pandemic.

Two motions in Bundestag

By the end of February 2021, liberals handed over to the German parliament a motion for speeding up the visa-giving procedure and extending the Western Balkan Order until 2025. At the same time, in Bundestag, the rightist party alternative motion for Germany was debated, AfD, which called for the annulment of the Western Balkan Order with the argument of economic crisis and high unemployment caused by pandemic.

Adjusting the Western Balkans enables citizens of the Western Balkans to work in Germany even without a formally recognised qualifications. Condition is a business contract in Germany. So far, from 2016 until 2020, nearly 100,000 immigrants have come to Germany, among them over 13 200 from Albania, over 21 400 from Kosovo, and from northern Macedonia 20 881. / DW/