European Parliament It has been finally approved Visa liberalization for Kosovo citizens, who will thus be able to enter EU countries without applying for a visa. The visa waiver should come into force from January 1, 2024. The final law on visa liberalization will be signed tomorrow in Strasbourg, France, where the plenary session of the European Parliament is taking place these days.

Kosovo had been waiting for that procedure for years: the tiny Balkan nation, which broke away from Serbia in 2008, met all the criteria for a visa liberalization request in 2018. But it was the last country in the western Balkans whose residents still had to apply for it. A visa before entering the European Union. Since then, EU states that do not recognize Kosovo’s independence – among them Spain, Romania and Greece – have slowed down the approval process.

The new rules will now allow Kosovo passport holders to enter the EU without a visa for stays of up to 90 days in any 180-day period. According to European Commission data, from 2018 to 2021, Kosovo citizens submitted 268,846 visa applications to 26 countries in the Schengen Area, and only 20,040 of them were granted.

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