Macedonian "Passport Frenzy" Ends

The excessively long waiting periods that in some cases stretched for over two years, into 2012, are a thing of the past, police spokesman Ivo Kotevski told Balkan Insight.
 
“Things are slowly getting back to normal as there are fewer applicants who request new passports,” he said.

He explained that the police now re-schedule applicants with the longest waiting periods for an earlier date. Kotevski hopes that those waiting will be able to get receive their new passports no later than March next year.

In late 2009 and in the first months of this year, the influx of passport requests jammed the police administration as the word spread out that a new passport offering improved security was a must for Macedonians to enjoy the newly achieved visa-free regime for most EU countries.

For many Macedonians the inability to get passports on time meant frustration, loss of money and cancelled travel arrangements.

Mirko Jordanov, a 24-year-old student from Skopje, had plans to go with his girlfriend on a winter holiday in Slovenia last winter.

Slovenia offered special discounts to welcome Macedonian tourists.

“But we could not go. My girlfriend got an appointment from the Ministry that her passport would be ready in June 2010,” Mitko explains. “That’s nine months after she applied.”

Mitko was then advised not to try the so-called "short procedure", which is more expensive, because "it too lasted several months."

Kotevski says that since the launch of the new passports in April 2007, more than 900,000 people in the country of two million have acquired one. This is equivalent to the number of passport owners from before, he says.