Citizens of Kosovo will finally be able to travel to Schengen Area countries without being obliged to apply for a visa first after the European Parliament has approved the abolishment of visas for Kosovo by 2024.
The decision was confirmed through a statement provided by the European Parliament on April 18, while it endorsed the agreement on short-stay visa freedom with the Balkan country, VisaGuide.World reports.
The statement said that Kosovo’s citizens would be permitted to travel to the European Union without visas for periods of up to 90 days in any 180-day period.
It added that after the law has become effective, the entire Western Balkans region will have a similar visa framework for the Schengen Zone.
The European Parliament said that the decision to lift visa requirements for citizens of Kosovo will take effect once the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) starts operating and, in any case, by 2024.
The act will be signed into law in Strasbourg today by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and the Swedish Presidency of the Council. A joint press conference has also been scheduled for today in which will participate the Rapporteur, Thijs Reuten, as well as Besnik Bislimi, Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister.
“After years in the waiting room, Kosovo is now the last one in the Western Balkan region to join our visa-free regime,” Reuten pointed out while stressing that this finally allows Kosovars to easily travel and also visit relatives and do business in the European Union.
“But it is more than that: this milestone is also an important foundation for the future and ever-closer cooperation between the European Union as well as Kosovo,” he added.
Citizens of Kosovo were eligible to travel to a limited number of foreign countries for years. Even though the visa liberalization process started for over ten years, and the European Commission in 2018 said that the country met all the needed conditions, up to this point, Kosovars can visit only 15 countries without visas, based on the Passport Index of the Visa Guide.World.
The countries in which Kosovars are eligible to travel visa-free include: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cook Islands, Dominica, Ecuador, Haiti, Micronesia, Montenegro, Niue, North Macedonia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Gambia, Turkey.
On the other hand, holders of the Kosovo passport need a valid visa in order to enter a total of 152 countries.
In the VisaGuide.World Passport Index, which ranks passports of 199 countries, Kosovo occupies the 196 positions, remaining at the bottom of the list when it comes to passport strength.
The founder of VisaGuide.World, Besart Bajrami previously said that despite the fact that visa liberalization would quadruple the power of Kosovo’s passport, it would still remain quite lower on the list compared to passports of other Western Balkan countries.
>> Kosovo Visa – Application Procedures and Requirements
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