On July 1, it will be exactly seven months since the long-delayed liberalization of visas for Kosovo. Apart from a collection of views, feelings, and expectations about this liberalization, there have been many, or rather countless, reports and predictions that the young people of Kosovo will largely leave their country to flee to European countries for work, and most likely never to return. News and warnings that said that 30% of all workers and 50% of young people would leave Kosovo within three months flooded the media everywhere. The calls for an immediate notice of the decrease in consumption were equally alarming. However, so far, the figures do not say this, unless the figures are deliberately misinterpreted and manipulated.
In February, Hibrid.info came out with a publication in which journalist Uran Haxha, among other things, said regarding this issue that: “As journalists, we have it problematic to predict how many people will go and whether Kosovo will be emptied. The liberalization of visas coincided with the time when thousands of diaspora returned from Kosovo to their homes in Europe after the winter holidays which they spent in Kosovo. Every year there is an influx of travelers at this time, and the influx of travelers at the airport is extraordinary, but this did not stop some of the media from using the photos of the influx at the airport to portray that Kosovars are leaving Kosovo,” Haxha emphasized.
It is true that we should examine the figures over longer-term periods to make a more coherent measurement and draw conclusions, and we can even wait until the end of 2024 to do so. However, these first months are reflective as well as a clear indicator of the fact that the youth of Kosovo have not emptied it, at least not in the extreme numbers for which it has been preached.
Historian Asdren Shala, about the young people who have left so far, which may not necessarily be called emigration since according to statistics a large number of young people who are abroad are abroad for reasons of their academic studies, left the main blame to the government, saying that “What has happened to private property and capitalists in Kosovo is that every day more and more they are taking away people’s dignity. People run away from here for a better education, which Kosovo has not ensured with any education policy since the war. Therefore, individuals have numerous other motivations for leaving. We don’t have education, we don’t have health, we don’t have infrastructure, and we don’t have any rules.” The government must do something about this issue,” said Shala.
He even said that a scenario in which young people leave Kosovo would suit the government because “it suits the Kurti government for its country’s youth citizens to leave the country” because, according to him, “the diaspora would vote for him then, hence the diaspora tends to judge in general terms”.
Although the figures do not show a mass exodus of young people, it is evident that the liberalization of visas has led to the extinction of the most famous gastronomic establishments in the capital of Kosovo. Various factors influence and determine certain consequences in the development of the economy in a small country like Kosovo; however, the spread of fake news, as in this case, does not only represent misinformation but also has an impact on the general atmosphere and the practical perception of the development of our lifestyle and daily life in relation to the “foreign world”. Dissatisfactions can be great for the well-being and quality of public services in many spheres in Kosovo, but there is also the phenomenon of family closeness, where “the bird does not leave the nest” or “not all birds leave the nest and the builders of the nest, i.e., the parents.” So, six out of ten families may have one child working as an immigrant in an EU country, but this often creates optimal stability for the other children to develop a life in their homeland.
There are also those who think that the possibility of at least short-term migration is healthy and profitable, because for an isolated youth like ours, it will be an opportunity to reflect and see for themselves the way life is organized and structured in the diaspora and in “European style” in a much more pragmatic form, removing any possible overrating and idealization of such life.
Whichever case is relevant, one thing is certain: Kosovo has not been emptied of its young people, at least not yet.
Author: Hanmie Lohaj
