By Dragiša Mijačić (Coordinator of the Working Group of the National Convention on the European Union)
As of January 1st, 2024, Serbian citizens residing in Kosovo and Metohija are the only ones denied the right to visa-free travel to Schengen countries.
Since 2009, the authorities of the Republic of Serbia have been violating the Constitution through the discriminatory practice of issuing special passports for a certain number of its citizens.
To clarify, this discriminatory practice of issuing special passports does not apply only to citizens of Serbia who currently live in Kosovo and Metohija, but also to those who live anywhere else, including abroad. Hence, this decision also affects people from Kosovo and Metohija who went abroad 30 or 40 years ago.
In November 2023, the European Commission proposed to the European Parliament and the Council to amend the existing regulations to enable visa-free travel to the holders of these passports from January 1, 2024, but that initiative was halted thanks to the lobbying by part of Kosovo civil society and the Government of Kosovo.
Civil society organizations working in Serb-majority areas in Kosovo and a couple of organizations from Belgrade immediately reacted to lobbying from Pristina, but they failed to prevent the decision of certain European Union countries to wait until March 2024 at the earliest to change the regulations.
Apart from the Ministry for European Integration of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, other Serbian state bodies were not actively involved in this matter. Serbia’s lobbying in the European Parliament and the parliaments of member states is practically non-existent, which is scandalous for a country that wants membership in the EU. Or is it another proof of how serious we are in this regard?
According to the Constitution, Serbia should be a country for all of its citizens. In practice, the state authorities of Serbia discriminate against their citizens (Serbs, Albanians, Bosniaks, Gorani, Roma), while other segments of society are mostly silent. In the Serbian media, you can only read about the discrimination of the government of Kosovo, but not about the actions of the government of Serbia.
There is too much hatred in these areas and the life of an ordinary person is irrelevant to those who control our destinies. In the hope that at least a little will change in the New Year, I would wish for less discrimination and more understanding and agility in solving problems that are of vital importance to people.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
