The Government of Kosovo said that it is concerned with the proposal of the European Commission to remove visas for the holders of Serbian passports, who reside in the territory of Kosovo. The executive asked the European Union to reconsider this proposal.

Through a reaction published on social networks, the Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, Besnik Bislimi, said that this EC proposal for passports that are issued “by the so-called Serbian Coordinating Directorate” has not been discussed with the Government of Kosovo.

“Illegal passports issued by the Coordination Center of Serbia consider municipalities within Kosovo to be part of Serbia’s jurisdiction, this is a violation of our sovereignty and unacceptable,” said Bislimi.

He said that the Government of Kosovo invites the EU to “treat these documents as illegal as it treats the rest of the parallel documentation”.

The EC proposal was argued with the fact that visa liberalization will start to be implemented on January 1, 2023.

But, Bislimi said that the liberalization of visas for Kosovo does not mean that members of the Serbian community will remain without liberalization, as they, according to him, can be equipped with passports issued by Kosovo.

“Our government has already put into practice an accelerated procedure for equipping all Kosovo Serbs with passports. Recently, a high interest in increasing the number of citizens who have been provided with Kosovo passports has been seen. Compared to last year, we have an increase of 29 percent”, said Bislimi, adding that they have addressed this objection in the highest instances of the EU.