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"Transit" from Rinas to Europe, the entry and exit of Kosovo citizens increases by about 4 times

2024-06-16 08:31:00, Aktualitet CNA

"Transit" from Rinas to Europe, the entry and exit of Kosovo citizens

Tirana International Airport, LSA photo

As a chain effect of tourism, Tirana International Airport turned last year into the most important epicenter of flights in the Balkans, leaving Belgrade Airport behind.

The introduction of low cost airlines such as Wizz Air and Ryanair have made the number of destinations where they fly and their frequency to be high, making not only the locals, but also the Albanians of Kosovo, see it as a good opportunity to travel .

The liberalization of visas has increased the number of entry-exits of citizens from Kosovo from the border point at the Rinas Airport by about 4 times in January-April 2024, compared to the same period a year ago.

According to the official figures made available to "Monitor" from Tirana International Airport in January-April, over 55 thousand citizens with Kosovo passports entered the Rinas border crossing, while for the same period of this year over 62.7 thousand citizens of Kosovo.

In 2023, for the same period, 15 thousand Kosovo Albanians entered from Rinas and 18 thousand left. So we are clearly dealing with an increase of about four times due to the liberalization of visas.

The numbers of border crossings remain unclear, different views of the same picture

The exact number of Kosovar tourists in Albania is unclear and this stems from a number of aspects that, until today, Albanian institutions have not preferred to clarify, leaving it vague.

First, it is the patriotic tourism that mainly includes Kosovar Albanians and to a lesser extent those from Montenegro and North Macedonia that has held the main weight in the reported numbers of visitors.

For this basis are the figures reported by the Movement of Citizens from the Institute of Statistics, but the source is the State Police.

A similar report is made by the Ministry of Tourism and Environment, which if we refer to the period January-March estimated that about 600 thousand Kosovo Albanians have entered our country, with a 37% increase compared to a year ago.

Asked by "Monitor" about how the citizens of Kosovo are "counted" in relation to entering the country during the season when there is no registration of passports, representatives of the State Police in the country did not provide information.

Meanwhile, the 37% increase reported by the Albanian side for the 3-month period does not coincide much with the increase that, on the other hand, was given by the Kosovo Police. The latter made available to "Monitor" the data on entry-exits on the land route on the Kosovo-Albania border.

Specifically, according to these figures, arrivals in Kosovo from Albania for January-April 2024 have decreased by 25%, while departures from Kosovo in January-April 2024 compared to the same period a year ago have increased by 19.6%.

The increase in the entry of citizens from Kosovo to Albania seems to be significantly higher as a trend on the Albanian side, despite the fact that the comparison is not complete, as we have a 3-month and a 4-month report, but the trend is clear.

What is often not reported or clarified is how the entries coming from Kosovo are counted, are the Albanians counted here who, for the sake of the ease offered by the road, travel from Morina to Kukës and leave Qafë Morina to Tropoja or vice versa.

Are the entries of Kosovo citizens who use Albania as a transit to travel to Europe from the Airport also counted here?

As long as there is no accurate registration or clarification of the methodology used "to count" tourists, the figure that is offered is always evasive. /Monitor