A spontaneous trip without an agency that is not planned two months in advance - this is how Dragana Milić from Kosovska Mitrovica has never traveled. Until a few months ago, when the European Union finally abolished visas with citizens whose Serbian passport was issued by the Coordination Administration for Kosovo.
Until a year ago, Avni Mustava, an Albanian who lives in a small town near Pristina, had the same problem. Visa liberalization began only in January 2024 for citizens who have Kosovo passport.
"I finally took a relaxed trip to Rome, the city of art and the capital of culture, which was a dream of mine all my life," Tamara, a piano teacher at a music school, told Vreme. "We really felt like third-class citizens." And by everyone, Serbia, Kosovo, the European Union."
The more they travel, the more they leave.
The abolition of visas brought more trips, even a million more. So many more passengers used it Pristina airport more in 2024 compared to the year before, thus breaking the airport's records.
Although ordinary citizens of Kosovo, whether Albanians or Serbs, can travel to the EU much more easily, many try to leave permanently. Compared to the same period in 2023, with 3.905 requests, the number of unfounded asylum seekers from Kosovo doubled, according to report of the European Commission published in early December.
"For decades, many, especially young people, suffered from the feeling of ghettoization, which significantly affected their lives," Serbeze Hadžinaj, an investigative journalist from Pristina, told Vreme. "Among those affected were Kosovo Serbs, who faced mobility challenges, whether they had Serbian or Kosovo passports. This situation was senseless and contributed to the disintegration of Serbian communities by recognizing different types of passports."
Postponing the cancellation of visas left, she adds, "deep scars on the lives of the citizens of Kosovo and negatively affected an entire generation."
There is no data on how many Serbs from Kosovo are trying to apply for asylum.
Passport as Serbian, but actually it is not
Dragana is one of only 17.000 residents of Kosovo who are left with the passport of the Coordination Administration, which is a specific body of the Serbian MUP.
The passport looks the same as the Serbian one, with the difference that in the place where it says to citizens of Serbia that the passport is the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, to residents of Kosovo it says - Coordination Administration. And with one more important difference - that the owners of this passport have been trotting behind the Serbian passport for even a decade and a half in the right to go visa-free to the EU.
Dragana is 27 years old, she says she loves to travel, and so far she has only been to Prague once and on a graduation excursion to Spain.
"It's not even about the money, you just feel like you can't move anywhere," she says. "In addition, it was amazing to me that none of my friends from Serbia understood that I could not travel like them, people simply did not have that information."
The two times when she traveled with a visa, she had to come to Belgrade in person and hand in the documents, and then she waited several weeks for an answer. Like the citizens of Serbia, before the introduction of visa liberalization back in 2009.
So, even if she planned the trip, there was a possibility that she would be rejected for a visa, so it is said, "she didn't even bother to try."
Dragana in RomeDragana in Rome for the first time; Photo: Private archive
Ups and downs lasting a decade or more
In 2017, as many as 92.000 people in Kosovo had the passport of the Coordination Administration, but seven years later that number dropped to only 17.000, according to the report Member of the European Parliament and EP rapporteur for the abolition of visas for Serbs from Kosovo, Matjaž Nemec.
"From the aspect of respect for human rights, we had discrimination against people based on their place of residence," Milica Rakić Andrić from the non-governmental organization New Social Initiative from Kosovska Mitrovica told Vreme. "That group of people was completely isolated."
The number of these passports decreased because, she adds, Albanians from Kosovo got visa liberalization themselves 10 months earlier, and a number of them had these passports. However, mostly due to the fact that the Serbs from Kosovo managed to get the classic passports of Serbia.
"Most of those people transferred the gastrointestinal tract to Serbia, but that was a big problem because the police controlled them at the highest level, people who actually moved to central Serbia, for example, even had difficulties," explains Rakić Andrić. "It turns out that most people were able to do it through a little bit of corruption because there was no other way."
The decision of the EU to cancel their visas solved the problem not only for them, but also for the European Union because its officials, in the meantime, closed the departments that dealt with issuing short-term visas. So some issued visas in Skopje, Belgrade, Pristina...
Until the abolition of visas, Serbs from Kosovo could travel to European countries that are outside Schengen, but also to Russia, China, and India, and they did not practice going to the latter, she adds.
Photo: Tanjug / Nenad MiloševićPhoto: Tanjug / Nenad Milošević
They leave anyway.
From 2018 to 2022, more than 150.000 people left Kosovo, it was announced Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kosovo in 2024.
In 12 years, the number of Kosovo citizens who went to live in Germany has almost doubled, it shows research by the Institute for Advanced Study.
Visa liberalization, as expected, only further encouraged people to leave and much more, says Serbeze Hadžinaj, although he adds that there are still no official data on migration since visas were abolished, but only on unfounded asylum seekers.
She adds that in the case of Kosovo and visa liberalization, however, "double criteria were applied and people were unfairly punished".
"Not only because of the corrupt and criminalized elite in power, but also because of the contestation of Kosovo's statehood and the EU's geopolitical problems," adds Hadžinaj. "Although the abolition of visas significantly simplified the movement of people, eased family needs and boosted tourism, Kosovo remains outside the European green card system."
This means that passengers from Kosovo still face additional costs when driving within the EU.
