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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Stricter criteria for issuing new biometric passports

Belgrade/Bonn, 16 June 2009

First Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Ivica Dacic said that after the consensus reached within the EU regarding the issue of visa liberalisation for Serbian citizens it is important to ensure absolute travel document security. He announced that stricter criteria will be put in place for issuing biometric passports.

Author: Fonet

In a statement to Deutsche Welle Radio, Dacic said that the EU is most concerned about the possible misuse of Serbian passports in Kosovo, adding that these technical details are under police jurisdiction.

He explained that a number of technical measures will be implemented for making the criteria for issuing biometric passports stricter and these criteria will also apply to citizens living in Kosovo. Speaking about the conditions from the roadmap for visa liberalisation that Serbia still has to meet, Dacic said that consensus has now been reached within the EU regarding the issue of visa liberalization. It is expected that the European Commission will make a positive recommendation to remove visa restrictions in July and mainly all that remains to be done is to implement measures that have already been adopted. Now it is important that Serbia resolves technical issues which are important to EU states such as border control, control of the administrative border with Kosovo, dual citizenship and the issuance of passports to citizens living in Kosovo, said Dacic.