Bosniaks and Goranis from the Prizren and Dragash regions are increasingly interested in Bulgarian passports, while representatives of the Bosniak community consider this phenomenon as an attempt to create a new Bulgarian community.
Bosniak MP Rasim Demiri told Radio Kosova that in recent years, there have been attempts to Bulgarianize Bosniak citizens of Kosovo.
The lack of economic development and deepening poverty in the country has pushed some citizens of the Dragash Municipality and the Zhupa region to obtain Bulgarian passports and citizenship, with the aim of traveling to European Union countries.
The Mayor of Dragash, Bexhet Xheladini, in an interview with Radio Kosovo, says that the Bulgarian embassy in Kosovo has visited this municipality several times, making capital investments with the aim of luring the population to register as Bulgarians and obtain Bulgarian passports.
“The Bulgarian Embassy makes investments in Dragash every year, implementing one or two capital projects. Even before, there were cases when some citizens registered as Bulgarians in order to obtain a Bulgarian passport. The latest registration has shown that there are very few other cases, as in the villages where they thought they would register as Bulgarians, they failed,” he said.
Representatives of the Bosniak community consider this phenomenon as an attempt to further divide and separate their community and create a new Bulgarian community. They have appealed to EU representatives to stop this phenomenon.
Rasim Demiri, a member of the Kosovo Assembly, told Radio Kosovo that in recent years there have been attempts to Bulgarianize Kosovo citizens. In the last census, not a single member of the Bosniak community was registered as Bulgarian, Demiri explained.
“This registration was also proof that the attempt to Bulgarianize Kosovo has failed, despite the efforts. As for the documents, there are some individuals who, for personal interests, have obtained a Bulgarian passport, because Kosovo was under a visa regime and people wanted to travel around the world,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, citizens say that no one who has received a Bulgarian passport is Bulgarian, but that they have done so entirely for personal interests.
“They are not Bulgarians, we all know that. They are Albanians, they get Bulgarian passports for personal interests. I have heard rumors… I don’t know, it seems to me that they have an office, but I don’t know if it is here, or in Dragash, or maybe somewhere else,” emphasizes the interviewed citizen.
Otherwise, the Department of Citizenship, Asylum and Migration, in an email response, clarified that there are no legal restrictions, as the law allows for two or more citizenships.