Brussels, 07/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - After European Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström opened a dialogue with Kosovo in Pristina on liberalising the visa regime, ThinkYoung, a think tank which lobbies for young people, decided to return to this controversial issue at a conference held on Monday 5 March. This conference formed part of a much broader project, “Sustainable Kosovo: advocacy for young people”, which seeks to establish a link between young people of Eastern and Western Europe and to encourage the potential of young people in the sustainable development of Kosovo.
ThinkYoung is critical of the repeated rejection of Kosovo's requests to become part of the Schengen area, which puts a brake on the development of young Kosovars as it means they are denied access to education, training and professional experience abroad. Just as the five other Balkans states - Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina - which had the EU visa requirement removed from 2009, had to do, the government of Kosovo will have to bring in substantial reforms in areas such as border management, migratory flows, public order and security (in particular tackling organised crime and corruption) and issues of fundamental freedoms related to freedom of movement.
Liberalisation of visas in Kosovo is complicated by, among other things, its recent independence and the fragility of its institutions. At the conference, Ulrike Lunacek (Greens/EFA, Austria), European Parliament rapporteur on Kosovo, said that “the government is perhaps not as strong as it should be but there is a government and a parliament which are working and which are bringing about constitutional reform”. “Kosovo could aspire to membership of the OECD or the Council of Europe and could also become more involved in regional cooperation”, she said.
MEP Doris Pack (EPP, Germany) also raised the issue of the future prospects of young Kosovars who were being denied the opportunity to travel. “I'm thinking especially of all those young people who are trying to find work but who don't have a way out. Not to be able to leave your country and return freely is humiliating”, she argued. Concluding her speech, she sought to give reassurance with regard to the status of candidate for accession recently granted by the EU to Serbia, saying that “Serbia will never become part of the EU without resolving the problems with its neighbours beforehand”. (SD/transl.rt)