Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kuri signs the application for EU membership.
(dpa) Citizens of the Republic of Kosovo can now travel to the EU without a visa. Negotiators from the EU states and the European Parliament agreed on this on Wednesday. The parliament announced that the country from the Western Balkans should be visa-free by 2024 at the latest.
Holders of a Kosovan passport could then stay in the EU for short stays of up to 90 days without a visa. Then the same rules would apply to the entire Western Balkans with countries like Serbia or Montenegro. Wednesday’s agreement has to be confirmed again by Parliament and the EU states, which is considered a formality.
Also on Wednesday, Kosovo officially applied for EU membership. Formally, the country only has an “EU accession perspective”. The main obstacle to EU rapprochement is that five EU member states – Spain, Romania, Slovakia, Greece and Cyprus – do not recognize Kosovo.