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Of all the passports in the world, the one in Kosovo opens fewer doors than most and does not even open those in other parts of Europe.
Kosovars still need visas to enter the European Union, despite the bloc’s executive wing concluding that the country meets all the criteria for the free travel of its citizens. For 27-year-old Kosovar journalist Aulona Kadriu, no one should ask for a visa. That, she says, is madness.
“I do not believe in this, I do not believe that we are Europeans. I say that the notion of what is European needs to be rethought. “I do not understand why an entire people should be closed and isolated,” said Aulona Kadriu.
“I left the visa appointment in March, it cost me about 180 euros and it took me approximately two weeks to gather all the necessary documents. “It’s a real hell and all that, there is no visa liberalization.” said Besnik Thaci.
Out of 199 countries ranked by the number of destinations that passport holders can visit according to the Henley index, only 10 of them offer fewer opportunities than Kosovo, which has to share the list with countries like Afghanistan, Syria , Yemen and North Korea.
Kadriu gave up trying to travel within Europe for work or leisure, because she found it very disappointing the hardships that Kosovars have to go through. The country’s 1.8 million landlocked citizens are the only ones in the Balkans who need a visa to do so, and this magical permit is proving quite difficult for them.
The journalist considers such a situation humiliating. The Government of Kosovo says that it has met every criterion out of a total of 95 that the EU has set in the roadmap for liberalization.
However, the process has been repeatedly hampered by some EU member states, especially France, which has expressed reservations about the free movement of Kosovars.
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