Visa-free travel to the EU would be a real a boon to Kosovans some 200,000 of whom have recently moved out of their self-proclaimed republic.
The EU is handing out gifts to Kosovo in a manner that more befits Santa Clause than a serious organization. And this at a time when Kosovo is making no effort whatsoever to normalize relations with Serbia — the main condition for its much-sought integration with the 28-nation bloc.
In an interview with Radio Sputnik, Pavle Dimitrijevic, a Belgrade-based political analyst, said he failed to see any breakthrough made by Pristina to merit such a gift.
“If the EU is really trying to normalize relations between Belgrade and Pristina it should have given something to Belgrade too because this would motivate both sides to move faster,” Pavle Dimitrijevic said.
Even though EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was quick to personally bring the good news to Kosovo, not everyone in the EU appears to be happy about this.
Above all Britain, whose Justice Secretary Michael Gove said that if the EU wanted to take in new members then the British should think about getting out because the five potential new members of the EU — Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania and Turkey — would result in millions more people having the right to move to the UK.
Nearly 200,000 Kosovans have left for the EU over the past 12 months alone.
Just as German Chancellor Angela Merkel was meeting Kosovo’s visiting Prime Minister Isa Mustafa in Berlin in March, his brother illegally entered Germany to ask for political asylum there.
Kosovo, with a population of 1.8 million joins Turkey, Ukraine and Georgia in a current crop of neighboring countries in the process of being added to a list of those whose citizens are not required to obtain a visa prior to travel in Europe.
