The former OSCE Ambassador to Albania, Robert Bosch, who just completed
his mandate as Dutch Ambassador to Kosovo, said that the attention given
recently to the Albanian criminality in Netherlands is a media
exaggeration.
“A Dutch media outlet published a document of the Amsterdam Police, talking about an increase of the Albanian mafia in Netherlands. The Police Officer wrote that maybe the visa regime should be thought once again, since it has increased the crime. This was an internal document, not for the media. It received more attention than necessary”, said the former OSCE Ambassador to Albania.
Despite this, according to him there is no risk that an immigration wave brings back the visa regime with Netherlands.
“It should have remained within the police, because police officers are not diplomats. We have a big problem with young Albanians in Netherlands, who try to enter Britain illegally. They fail most of the time efforts, so they start living on the streets. They don’t steal, but the majority of people don’t want to see them wandering around, and ask police to turn them away. But the police cannot do it, due to the free visa regime. These immigrants show they have no idea what a free visa regime means, because they think they are allowed to do anything. I think that if there is crime, and there is crime everywhere, we cannot generalize it with Albanians, since most of them are good people. This turned into a big deal right now, went to ministry levels, but let’s be reasonable. Real criminals are not stopped by the visa regime. It would be very unjust to turn normal people into victims just because of a single police officer”, Bosch said.
As for the integration perspective of Albania and Kosovo in the EU, Bosch sees a green light for the next five years.
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