The EU is in no hurry to follow the lead of the European Parliament and open borders to Kosovo
During the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU, there is no real chance that visa liberalization for Kosovo will be on the agenda.
KosovoOnline writes about this, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The issue of visa liberalization is being fueled by the European Parliament's decision . However, Brussels experts interviewed by the publication's journalists noted that this is not the first time a majority in the European Parliament has demanded something similar, but nothing has happened in practice.
Last week, at a plenary meeting, the European Parliament by a majority vote approved the conclusions of the Report on Kosovo, the Serb-phobic MP Viola von Cramon, who is in charge of this issue. As before, this report refers to the challenges facing Kosovo, particularly in the fight against corruption and organized crime, judicial reform, the environment, education and health. The call was repeated for EU members who have not recognized Kosovo as a state to do so as soon as possible, and the EU Council immediately approved the decision to liberalize the visa regime for Kosovo citizens.
However, Germany's EU presidency in the second half of last year did not bring anything new on this issue. Many diplomats from other EU countries believe that Germany was not sincere when it publicly promised to work on a decision on visa liberalization. Germany expressed support for the process, advocating visa liberalization, but this was not particularly noticed in its actions during its presidency of the European Council.
The political crisis in Kosovo, the lack of success in the work of the prosecutor's office in the fight against organized crime and corruption at the highest government level also influenced this turn of events. Now Portugal has taken over the EU Council presidency for the next six months, and there is no real chance that visa liberalization for Kosovo will be on the agenda. Experts from Brussels believe that in the second six months of 2021, when the chairmanship passes to Slovenia, this issue will be of more interest to this country, but the chance is also not great that the issue of visa liberalization will be on the agenda.
The main obstacle in this matter remains the opposition of France, which is also supported by the Netherlands, which has fully tasted the delights of migration and the poor of the country and ethnic crime, including Albanian. France will hold the presidency of the EU Council in 2022.
The EU is in no hurry to follow the European Parliament's lead and open its borders to Kosovo.