Albania Gives Kosovo Opposition Leaders Citizenship

Albanians in Tirana at a protest in support of Vetevendosje in December 2015. Photo: BIRN

The six Vetevendosje politicians on Tuesday welcomed the news that they had been given Albanian citizenship and said all Kosovo Albanians should have the same opportunity.

Albania’s President Bujar Nishani granted citizenship to Vetevendosje’s chairman Visar Ymeri and its main leader Albin Kurti, as well as MPs Dardan Molliqaj, Aida Derguti, Glauk Konjufca and Liburn Aliu, media reported the previous day.

Konjufca, the chairman of the Vetevendosje parliamentary group, told the Ora News TV channel on Tuesday that this was “a symbolic gesture but meaningful”.

“It was us who required Albanian passports. We started the procedures two to three months ago, everything in accordance with the law,” he said.

Konjufca said that all Albanians should have an automatic right to get citizenship of Albania.

“We believe that all Albanians should be in one state and this has to start with a merger between Albania and Kosovo,” he said.

“We are not against the Republic of Kosovo, we have to make it stronger but with the aim of making it ready to join Albania,” he added.

President Nishani made the decision in a decree dated August 8 but it only became public when the decree was published in the official gazette.

BIRN has found however that the decree was not published on the presidency’s official website, a standard procedure of transparency that is followed in all the cases when the president makes decrees or grants citizenships.

The presidency’s press office didn’t respond by the time of publication to BIRN’s inquiry about why the decree was not published on the website as normal.

According to the decree, Albanian citizenship was given to the six Vetevendosje politicians in accordance with the law on citizenship.

Paragraph seven of article nine of the law – used by the president as the vbasis for his decree – says that the citizenship can be given “if the Republic of Albania has a scientific, economic, cultural or national interest” in doing so.

For those who don’t fit these criteria, the process of getting citizenship can take years.

The opposition Vetevendosje is the third-strongest party in Kosovo.