On July 30, Kosovo made its most recent step on the rocky path towards forging its statehood. “We are fully completing the build-up of our state. Today starts a new era of ultimate parting from other identities that our citizens have had,” Kosovar prime minister Hashim Thaci said upon presenting student Teuta Begolli with the first-ever Kosovo passport. “From this moment on, Kosovo’s citizens have their own state identity; they are citizens of the Republic of Kosovo, for which we have sacrificed for years,” he added.
Since breaking away in February, the one-time Serbian province has been struggling on two fronts. While trying to achieve recognition on the foreign front, within its borders it has been adopting laws, creating institutions and appointing officials. Starting to issue its very own passports, however, proved one of its most controversial acts since the declaration of independence.
As tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanians rushed to submit their applications to get their new personal documents, Serbia once again made it very clear it would not recognise anything deriving from the assumption Kosovo was independent. “As far as the government and the Serbian interior ministry are concerned, we will not recognise the passports of the so-called independent state of Kosovo. We will not allow a single citizen of Serbia to cross the administrative line or border crossings with Serbia carrying that passport,” Serbia’s interior minister Ivica Dacic was quoted by broadcaster B92 as saying. “For all foreign nationals who have a stamp of the so-called state of Kosovo, that stamp will be invalidated and a stamp of the Republic of Serbia will be placed on top of it,” he added.
The 20 European Union member states that have so far recognised Kosovo are bound to let owners of the new Kosovo passports pass their borders unimpeded. Bulgaria is one of them. “Bulgaria recognises Kosovo passports, which is a logical step following its recognition of the Kosovar state,” the information and public relations directorate of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry told The Sofia Echo.
The US also joined the circle of states that recognise the passports, as announced by the US embassy in Pristina on August 4. “The United States of America officially recognise Kosovo’s passports as valid documents. As of August 1, the US government has decided to issue visas for Kosovo passport-holders, so they can travel to the US,” website Balkan Insight quoted a media statement as saying.
EU aspirants Macedonia and Montenegro, in spite of not having recognised the youngest Balkan state, said Kosovar citizens would be able to enter their state territory with their new passports.
Travelling to countries that have not recognised Kosovo may, however, prove hard for its citizens. Slovakia, an EU member that has rejected the independence of the fledgling state, has said it will reject the new passports as well. “Slovakia does not recognise Kosovo and therefore it does not recognise the Kosovar passports,” Dana Michalkova, deputy head of mission at the Slovak embassy to Bulgaria, told The Sofia Echo.
On the other hand, the Kosovars have other options as well. Up to now, they have been using travel documents issued by the United Nations mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Although it stopped producing them when the Kosovo government started issuing its own passports, those already issued will be valid until their expiry date. And the UNMIK documents are recognised everywhere, just like the Serbian passports most Kosovo citizens have.
“We are a nation that easily finds other solutions, we don’t have only one passport,” Nol Pashoja, who also has a Macedonian passport, told Reuters.
Or there is the more patriotic alternative. “I will only visit countries that accept my passport,” Kosovo’s first passport holder Teuta Begolli said, as quoted by the agency. “I will not travel to other countries until they recognise us.”
