In four months, nearly 200,000 Albanians apply to leave Kosovo and Metohija

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In the last four months, almost 200,000 visas applications have been submitted to the German Embassy in Pristina, RTS reports. According to the current practice, the German embassy issues a little over 5,000 permits a year.

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"11 percent of Kosovo's population" has applied for a German visa since early December of last year, according to Albanian language media in Pristina.

"From early December until the end of March, the embassy of this country in Pristina received 199,783 visa applications. This month, 48,044 requests were submitted to that embassy. In February, there were about 2,000 fewer," those media outlets report.

The German mission in Pristina, however, offers only 500 to 800 a month - a total of 5,500 visas a year.

Several years ago, German authorities introduced privileged approach for workers from the Balkans, which made Germany a target destination for Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija.

How many requests have been submitted to embassies of other countries

The number of visa applications submitted to the embassies of other countries in Pristina is incomparably lower.

The Swiss embassy received a total of 8,737 visa applications from November 2021 until January.

The Croatian embassy, ​​in the period from November to March, received 1,944 requests.

They stress in Pristina that the intensity of submitting visa applications to the German embassy is constantly high, and that this would mean, if the trend continues, that in just one year a third of the population expressed the desire to leave Kosovo and Metohija.

Sociologists are warning that the tendency to leave is disturbing, and point out economic and educational factors as the main reasons.

(Telegraf.rs)