Unleashing Kosovo youngsters’ potential in the European Union. Since its independence on February 17th 2008, Kosovo has been an important and controversial issue for the European Union. EU perspective will require a combination of the Kosovar leadership meeting the criteria set forth and European Union political will. Kosovo can only pursue its European dream by investing , empowering and spreading the potential of its natural fountain of youth. ThinkYoung, as an international organization of young people for young people, chose to focus one of its main projects on Kosovo, a European country where more than half of the population is younger than 26 years and which is still left without any concrete European Union perspective. The project “Advocacy for Young People of Kosovo” is mainly aimed at raising awareness on the situation of young people in Kosovo with special focus on the visa liberalization issue. The outcomes of the project showed that Kosovo is a country of talented young individuals who have concrete ideas on how to contribute to their country’s development. Moreover they have pragmatic requests to the EU policy makers and an opinion about the relations of their country with the European Union.

There is much work to be done in making European citizens aware of the issues young people in Kosovo faces, especially the fact that currently they have to apply for a visa in order to travel, work and study in the European Union. Achieving visa liberalization for all citizens of Kosovo will require real and tangible reform, but if the EU and Kosovo Government demonstrate the necessary political will, visa-free travel could be around the corner. On one hand Europe can and must do a lot to help Prishtina into improving Kosovo economic and social condition in order to allow youngsters in Kosovo have access to better opportunities than those they have now. 

On the other hand, the government of Prishtina must put up strong efforts to meet the EU criteria especially through a forward movement in the fight against corruption and organized crime, reform of border and migration management, security of documents, and protection of personal data and of media rights. Kosovo’s leaders need to place its European Union future at the centre of decision-making and act now. It is up to them to show to Brussels’ decision makers that they’re truly committed to Kosovo’s European perspective in order to overcome the obstacles on their path. They started doing something but it is not enough. Indeed despite the fact that Kosovo has adopted several reforms and that its neighbouring countries in the Western Balkans do have visa free travel to the EU, up to now the EU has not opened a visa dialogue towards Kosovo.

The European Commission, while presenting the “Enlargement package 2010” last November, revealed that it is not ready to start negotiations with Kosovo over visa liberalization because Prishtina does not have a reintegration package for its returnees. For other countries, the signing of a readmission agreement, which facilitates the return to their own country of persons residing without authorization in a Member State, was sufficient to obtain visa liberalisation. Notwithstanding the fact that Kosovo’s parliament has adopted a re-admission law, which helps paving the way to start visa dialogue, and has signed a number of readmission agreements with EU members, an official visa dialogue is still far from being opened. This situation might fuel views that the world's youngest country is being treated differently than the other countries in the Western Balkans. Many argues that the main problem is the Member States fear of illegal migrants and they have a prejudice that after visa liberalization Kosovars will flood into EU and start mass migration.

A survey ThinkYoung conducted among Kosovo students is that 89% of them stated that given the chance to work and study abroad for a short period of time, they would return to Kosovo in order to contribute to the building of their society and economy. This is definitely a positive attitude of the youngsters and shows that the EU Member States’ fear of an influx of permanent migrants from Kosovo if visa liberalisation is to be granted is rather unfounded.
What comes out here is that this situation affects young people first, being disabled from travelling and working abroad and consequently not being granted the same opportunities as other European youngsters.

In the very fast changing globalized world where we live in, young people are considered as invaluable resources which can help society towards higher prosperity, open-mindedness and understanding among people. Young people inspire for change, growth and development. The European Union, as an international institution coordinating politics and economy, promoting development and peace, needs all European youngsters to be involved in facing these challenges.

Michela Palladino
Policy Officer
ThinkYoung

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