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Mahesh

17/02/24 11:04 AM IST

Kosovo face delays in Schengen approval

In News
  • Kosovo recently secured visa-free access to the Schengen zone in Europe, world’s largest zone of free movement, becoming the last western Balkan non-European Union nation to be waived visa requirements.
Issues
  • The case of Kosovo is egregious given that the European Commission had in 2018 cleared Pristina’s preparedness to tackle illegal migration and corruption, preconditions for the entry.
  • Arguably, the single biggest obstacle to the country’s Schengen visa waiver was strong opposition from several EU members, which do not recognise the 2008 unilateral declaration of independence by the breakaway state from Serbia.
  • Kosovo has not been accorded legal statehood by the UN and denied recognition by Russia and China.
Schengen agreement
  • When the Schengen agreement took effect in 1995, only seven of the entire 15 member union at the time joined the passport-free area.
  • Today, 23 of the 27 EU states are part of the passport-free zone, excluding Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria and Ireland. But then, the Schengen area comprises 27 countries, including four non-EU members: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Norway.
  • It is important not to confuse the status of the four countries with the recent entry of Kosovo and the other five western Balkan entrants which are not counted among the Schengen 27 members.
Schengen region during COVID-19
  • Schengen had come under enormous strain following the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis during the last decade, the arrival of thousands of migrants from conflict zones in Africa and West Asia and the anti-immigrant-politics stoked by the continent’s far-right populist parties.
  • The EU had even considered removal from Schengen, countries located on the bloc’s Mediterranean border, as individual states contemplated unilateral reinstatement of borders.
  • While the frontier states such as Italy called for an effective system of burden sharing by the entire EU, the final destination states in western Europe, especially France and the U.K. resorted to questionable methods of offering incentives to prevent the arrival of refugees.
  • The EU’s attempt to fashion a humane policy under the Dublin Regulation to protect asylum seekers, while maintaining the integrity of the Schengen, has itself come under severe scrutiny from human rights groups and the UN Refugee Agency.
Advantages for EU border free policy
  • For nationals of any country, the benefit is the freedom to travel with a single Schengen visa to other European nations within the borderless area.
  • For EU states, the Visa-free borderless travel, alongside the single currency adopted by 20 EU countries, is the most visible symbol of European integration.
Source- The Hindu

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