30 september 2009. Several dozens of Kosovo citizens that lived in Germany with unregulated residence status were deported back to Prishtina last Monday, marking the start of implementation of readmission agreement that Kosovo Government signed with the EU member-states.

The readmission of citizens with unregulated legal status was one of the conditions for the liberalisation of visa regime between EU and Kosovo. Humanitarian workers in Kosovo claim, on the other hand, that the process could increase the social problems in the country.

The majority of Kosovo citizens covered by the readmission programme live in Germany, with Roma minority leading in total numbers of all potential deportees.

According to incomplete data, since the start of the 1990’s, at least 50,000 Roma from Kosovo moved to the EU, most of them to Germany. According to plans accepted by the Government of Kosovo, they should return by the year 2010.

Kosovo Committee for Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms said on Monday that the political climate in Kosovo is favourable, but the social and economic situation doesn’t offer sufficient premises for the process.

Committee representative Behxhet Shala warned that the Government of Kosovo just signed the readmission agreements and didn’t prepare any concrete project that would allow the returnees the opportunity for a fresh start. Shala says that the rate of return would increase poverty, unemployment and crime rates in Kosovo, anyways.

Analysts assume that a number of forcefully deported will try to enter EU countries again.

Source: oneworldsee.org