Albanians eager to get bio passports

TIRANA, Jan 6 – Albanians continue to stand in long lines to apply for the biometric passports which, they believe, will open the European doors – most likely next summer.
During the New Year the lines got longer as tens of thousands of immigrants returned to Albania and tried to apply for the new passports while celebrating the New Year.
Such long lines made it impossible for the producing company to cope with the influx of the requests which were 2.3-4 times higher than its capacities, according to the Interior Ministry.
Authorities have extended business hours over the last three months in an effort to urge citizens to apply. New biometric passports have been a key request by the European Union for Albania to implement before being granted a visa-free regime. About 390,000 Albanians have already received the new passports.
Albania hopes to be granted the regime by summer this year.
Albanian authorities have said they have already complied with all the requirements set by Brussels in their road map.
It is still not clear regarding the process for immigrants.
The question is: If they apply while in Albania yet return to their current overseas residence, what happens to their current passport and their status overseas when the new passport is produced and becomes valid in Albania, invalidating their old passport? Will the host countries let them return to Albania to obtain the new, valid passport? What red tape will they have to go through to return to the Host country?
The EU’s decision to lift visa restrictions for citizens of three countries of the former Yugoslavia is a major step forward. Albania was not included in that list of the three countries: FYROM, Montenegro and Serbia. Together with Bosnia Herzegovina it has to wait until summer when Brussels will reconsider their application.
Visa restrictions left a feeling of profound isolation across the Balkans, especially for Albanians who had never enjoyed free travel during the post-war period.
It was considered a “new ‘Berlin Wall’ of visa restrictions” between the EU and its neighbors to the east and south-east.
In recent years, the EU has signed visa facilitation agreements with all the countries of the Balkans. Those agreements were supposed to make travel to the Schengen area easier: applying for a visa was to be cheaper and faster. However, officials from these countries complain that the process has not been working as designed. Very often applicants considered the demands required at the consulates as “humiliating”.
Officials from the countries affected describe such violations as systemic and say that complaints to the European Commission have remained unanswered.
Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina are not part of the current round, but are likely to qualify next summer. Kosovo will remain in limbo because not all EU countries recognize its claim to statehood. The wall of visa restrictions has been moved, but it has not been dismantled entirely.