Spain drops visas for travellers from Kosovo in boost for Balkan nation

Spain has dropped its visa requirements for Kosovo citizens in a move that bolsters the Balkan nation’s European aspirations and ends a period of ambiguity about Madrid’s stance.

“On the eve of the 16th anniversary of [our] independence, Spain joined the EU states that recognise Kosovo’s passport,” Albin Kurti, Kosovo’s premier, said on Facebook on Sunday.

Spain is the biggest of five EU members that have yet to recognise Kosovo, a position linked to its own internal struggle with secessionists in Catalonia and the Basque country. Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus are similarly opposed due to breakaway movements or large ethnic minorities on their territory that they do not wish to see emboldened by a Balkan precedent.

Madrid began implementing an EU-wide decision on visa-free travel for Kosovo on January 1, but the Spanish government made it clear on Monday that its opposition to the Balkan nation’s statehood remained steadfast.

“Spain still does not recognise Kosovo, the sovereignty or independence of Kosovo, because we do not recognise unilateral declarations of independence,” said José Manuel Albares, the Spanish foreign minister.

Spain was “of course” implementing the visa-free travel decision agreed in March, as were other members of the border-free Schengen area, Albares said. The minister had created uncertainty about Madrid’s position last spring, saying his country’s non-recognition of statehood “entails the non-recognition of Kosovo passports”.

Catalan pro-independence parties, with whom Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez struck a deal in November paving the way for his second full term in office, are longstanding supporters of Kosovo’s statehood.

But a spokesperson for the Spanish government rejected suggestions that the passport move was another concession to the Catalan secessionists.

An official for Together for Catalonia, a hardline separatist party, said it was “happy for the Kosovars” and glad it could shelve its own plans to promote the passport issue in the Spanish parliament.

Catalonia’s regional government, led by the separatists of the Catalan Republican Left, said it was “completely aligned with the position of European institutions on the recognition and sovereignty of Kosovo. It is Spain that has a contrary stance. This is an anomaly.”

Even as Kurti hailed “a week of new beginnings”, recognition from the other EU holdouts remains far from guaranteed.

Romania, which has yet to join the border-free Schengen area, has waived visa requirements for Kosovo citizens while insisting that the move is “without prejudice to positions on status”.

In 1999, Kosovo fought a brief but bloody war of secession from Serbia and unilaterally declared independence in 2008. While the US and much of the west has come to recognise its statehood, Serbia, Russia and China have refused to follow suit.

Non-recognition has been seen as one of the key obstacles to resolving the Kosovo issue and defusing one of the most persistent destabilising factors in the Balkans.

Edward P. Joseph, an expert on the Balkans at Johns Hopkins University in the US, called the Spanish decision “a breakthrough, heralding further convergence across Nato and the EU on the overarching question of Kosovo’s statehood. This is critical for regional stability.”

He added: “Until recently, Spanish diplomats had fled the room if a Kosovo official showed up. [The new step] opens up a range of possibilities.”

In addition to the implementation of requirements for visa liberalisation, Kurti highlighted a deal reached with Serbia on Christmas Day resolving the toxic issue around vehicle licence plates. Belgrade, which has long refused to recognise plates issued in Pristina, started to do so on January 1.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday called that “a step in the right direction [which] demonstrates that . . . normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia is possible”.

After a hiatus of more than two decades, Kosovo also began to register electricity users in the mainly ethnic Serb north of the country, where people had been tapping electricity produced in Serbia without paying for it as they rejected the regulatory oversight of Pristina.