THOUSANDS of young people in Kosovo are preparing to leave for work in Germany, which lacks healthcare workers, so the country that declared independence from Serbia 14 years ago could be left without a workforce in some sectors. Arben, a 26-year-old physiotherapist, sits in the back row of a bus coming from Ferizaj (Uroševac), a town in southeastern Kosovo. He has the Duolingo foreign language learning app installed on his mobile phone, so he studies German while riding toward his home village.

“I’m learning German because I’m leaving for Stuttgart soon,” Arben tells Hina while solving beginner tasks on his phone. He has never been to Germany, but as soon as he was offered a job in his profession, he did not hesitate. Germany and Switzerland lack healthcare staff, so Arben will get a permanent contract and hopes to stay permanently. “I will never return,” he says. Arben is one of more than 50,000 Kosovars currently waiting for a visa for Germany, according to analysts’ estimates in Kosovo.

How to survive

In Prizren, a town in the south of the country, a promenade along the river has been arranged, with its banks connected by an old stone bridge. Several couples with children are walking there, and a group of foreign tourists is climbing uphill toward the walls of the local fortress. But the cafes and restaurants are empty.

“People are thinking about how to survive,” says a local economist who wished to remain anonymous. “Prices have skyrocketed since the war in Ukraine began,” he adds. Some young people work temporarily in cafes and factories until they get a visa for abroad.

“Soon there will no longer be anyone to work in certain professions,” the economist warns. He says that 65,000 Kosovars are currently waiting for a work permit for Germany. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, and now both Albanians and Serbs are leaving the country of 1.8 million inhabitants in search of work abroad.

“So much blood was spilled, and in the end no one will remain,” says the resigned 37-year-old Miroslav in a village with a Serbian population. He works on European youth exchange programs.

“Young people have justified reasons for leaving Kosovo because politicians, due to a lack of ideas for solving economic problems and raising living standards, use media space for bickering and returning to the past,” he says. As reasons for young people leaving, he cites “low wages in the private sector, poor working conditions, work without contracts, denial of annual leave, and a poor political and security situation.”

Doctors abroad

Prizren is just one of the places where donations have arrived in recent years, so the city water supply was financed by Germany and the children’s playground by Sweden. The local economist, who worked on projects financed from abroad, complains that many foreigners responsible for implementing the projects were corrupt.

“They took a lot of money for themselves for high salaries and other benefits instead of the money being spent on what it was intended for,” he says. From Prizren, the second-largest city, buses from 6 a.m. take workers to jobs in the capital Pristina. There is the office of the Minister of Local Government Administration, Elbert Krasniqi.

“We as a government, of course, are monitoring the situation. We are directing policies toward the future in order to provide young people with enough services here,” he says. “But I also saw that emigration trend in Croatia, in the Vukovar area, where people are also leaving for Germany. It is a normal process, people seek better living conditions,” he adds.

Croatia was the last to join the EU in 2013, when the doors of the labor market in the bloc of 27 states opened to its residents. In the last ten years, it has lost about 400,000 inhabitants, according to the census published in January.

Miroslav says that it is “fortunate for Kosovo” that the German embassy is facing delays in processing applications for work visas. He claims that out of about 50,000 applications per month, only a few hundred are processed.

“Many citizens receive treatment outside Kosovo because of the poor state of healthcare, so we can only imagine the situation in a few years if this trend of doctors leaving for Germany continues,” he notes. The German Embassy in Pristina asks residents on its website not to come without an approved appointment.

“Currently, demand for appointments is greater than the capacity of the visa department, so the waiting period for certain types of visas is long,” it says there. The embassy did not respond with how many work visa applications there currently are and how many it approves monthly.

Germany and Switzerland the chosen countries

Last month, Krasniqi asked the European Commission to admit Kosovo into the EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR), a forum through which ten countries bordering the Adriatic and Ionian seas, or located in their hinterland, can draw money from EU funds for joint projects.

Serbia, a member of EUSAIR, is blocking Kosovo’s entry as an independent state into that initiative, which is an initial step toward potential EU membership one day.

“Many young people would be happy with life here in Kosovo and would not leave as they have been leaving for many years,” says Krasniqi. “We want to involve them in tourism and various cooperation programs, so that they do not have to look for work abroad but can find it here,” he adds.

Young people want better living conditions in Kosovo, whose independence has been recognized by 22 of the 27 EU countries. Taulian, an 18-year-old dentistry student, spent last summer on vacation with friends in Trogir, Split, and Dubrovnik.

He has just returned by bus from university in the Macedonian city of Tetovo to his hometown of Prizren. “There are not many opportunities for young people here, so everyone wants to go to Germany and Switzerland,” he says at the bus station. “But I do not want to go work abroad. I want to stay in my homeland,” he notes.

Source: index.hr