“Visa liberalisation for Kosovo Serbs with Serbia's passports violate sovereignty”

The EP's parliamentary assistant, at the same time a major applicant of Kosovo's sovereignty, Federica Welk, said the decision by the Commission for Civil Freedom and Home Affairs of the European Parliament, which approved the report on visa liberalisation for Serbian passport carriers, living on the territory of the Republic of Kosovo, is a decision to regret and violate Kosovo's sovereignty.

I am absolutely against this decision. In fact, I believe it violates Kosovo's sovereignty, as it gives legitimacy to these parallel structures that undermine Kosovo as a state, and I fear it only gives Serbia more power and reason to try to destabilise Kosovo, I am very concerned”, she told Rv21.

The report was compiled by Slovenian MP Matjazh Nemec, and voted 34 votes for. The reason is that; expanding EU visa liberalisation for Kosovo Serb residents is important to prevent discrimination against these citizens who risk being treated differently than other residents.

The Kosovo government has rejected this decision.

Klisman Cadiu, deputy Prime Minister Besnik Bislimi, in a response to RTV21 has expressed regret over the EP decision, saying the report's reasoning does not reflect the reality of the right to visa-free travel of citizens from the Serbian community.

Our citizens from the Serb community are not isolated, nor are they the only community that cannot travel to Europe. Our citizens from the Serb community are continuing to be equipped with documents of our state and to have high interest, and we continue to call on citizens to be equipped with them in order to exploit free movement's right to achieve visa liberalisation for our country. We continue to stand in full readiness and capacity to meet their demands. We reiterate that illegal passports issued by Serbia violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Kosovo, so they cannot be recognised or are valid travel documents. This stance risks creating a dangerous precedent, when only more than a year ago, a similar bid for recognising Russian travel documents issued in Ukraine and Georgy, was condemned and rejected by EU institutions themselves”, he said.