Wonder of Kosovo's positioning in relation to Open Balkans

Do not participate in the Balkan Mini Schengen, or as has already been reduced to “Open Balkans” is seen as a disavantage by former Vetevendosje Movement leader Visar Ymer.

According to him, Kosovo should be part of initiatives for regional co-operation, as the country should not remain isolated regional island.

The “Nisma {Open Balkans) is the product of three countries, so this puts us in dissanction because neither our voice nor our interest as a state is heard without being on the table. In principle, we have to become part of initiatives for regional co-operation because we can't, nor can we remain the isolated regional island”, Ymer has said of the Albanian Post.

“Market expansion and expansion should serve the development of each state and society. But it is an extremely important issue to see that our integration into a regional chain of economic value brings the right benefits to our social and individual welfare, the fact that we trade with others is not economic damage”.

He even stresses that “Kosovo cannot have developed economies based solely on the domestic market”, adding that “transformation of Kosovo's economic structure should be made by seeing and adapting global and regional developments”.

Ymer says the position of Kosovo's prime minister -- once his co-party, Albin Kurti -- is not clear.

He is surprised at how Prime Minister Kurti, on the one hand, does not accept integration into the <x0->Open Balkans” initiative on the other side accepts the common regional market.

“Kurti, on the one hand, does not accept the Balkan Open because of the risk he sees from Serbia's economic hegemony and on the other, accepts the Joint Regional Market (with Serbia inside) and proposes an even greater advantage in SEFTA's form (back with Serbia within)”.

Even, for the former head of the Kosovo Economic House (OEK), Safet Gerjaliu, Kosovo should not reject regional initiatives but form political arguments to justify the difficulties and barriers facing Kosovo and the Kosovo business community.

The economic integrations are of strategic importance, and in this direction I believe Kosovo's orientation should be right in this spirit”, Gerjaliu told the Albanian Post.

But, he adds, Kosovo should be participating in these initiatives as equal to other participating states.

The common key to solving all problems in the Western Balkans is Serbia and its destructive approach in terms of Kosovo's accession as state”.

The state leaders of Albania, Northern Macedonia and Serbia on 29 July this year have signed a package of documents of the memorandum of understanding for regional co-operation.

This was done at the Regional Co-operation Economic Forum, which was introduced earlier as “Mini-Balkan Schengen”.

After the agreement was signed between the countries, the name of the initiative, which is already named “Open Balkan” or “Balkani opened”.

The Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate import, export and movement of goods in the Western Balkans has to do with simplifying formalities related to import, export and movement of goods.

And customs co-operation and other competent authorities.

The second memorandum signed among the three countries concerns the movement of the labour market in the region, in terms of temporary residence permits.

While the signed agreement, which is called “Co-operation for Protection and Salvation from Disasters in the Western Balkans”, has to do with readiness among the three states for voluntary aid in the event of disasters.

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic, during the meeting held in Skopje, had declared that by January 2023, citizens of signatory states would move from Belgrade to Tirana without anyone stopping them.

On the other hand in this event, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti has not participated, with the reasoning that the “Mini-Sengen” initiative Balkan is an initiative without vision for the region.

Novi Sad's <x0); initiative does not have our approval, and as a result, we have not officially had an invitation to attend the meeting. For us, the so-called Missie-Shengen) is an initiative without vision for the region”, the Kosovo Government's Media Office said in response.