Especially in southern Albania, where the population is Orthodox Christian, and in a country where any religious observance significantly faded under socialism, there’s some wariness about political union because Kosovars are viewed as extreme Muslims. (Both Serbs and Republic-of-Albanians tend to be oblivious to the Roman Catholic Kosovar Albanians about Gjakovë, though granted they are a tiny minority.) I have repeatedly heard people in Korçë or Pogradec give the standard Albanian platitude that all Albanians everywhere are brothers, only for them to disparage Kosovars in nearly the same breath.

This matches what I have heard too. And I just remembered, Kosovar tourists in Albania are wary of violent crime, like muggings under gun threat. They see Albania as less safe than Kosovo in general.

I would be surprised if those fears among Kosovars were still common now years after the motorway was built and throngs of Kosovars come to Albania every summer and see it firsthand. Certainly I personally have never heard such concerns in the last decade.