One of the staple and most important issues this year has indisputably been visa liberalisation. In 2008, the European Commission opened what it calls the “visa liberalisation dialogue” with Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. As part of this dialogue, the Commission delivered to each country ‘roadmaps’ towards full visa liberalisation. The roadmaps provided a set of concrete conditions to be met by each country, grouped in the four main blocks: document security, illegal migration, public order and security as well as external relations and fundamental rights items linked to the movement of persons. As stated in the official declarations of the European Commission, “key elements of the blocks include: improvement of document security and in particular the introduction of biometrics in travel documents, better management of migratory risks, efficient law enforcement cooperation including cooperation with Europol and enhanced measures to fight against organised crime and corruption”.
During the first half of this year, the Commission sent missions to each country to assess their fulfilment of the conditions and therefore their readiness for full liberalisation. As the Commission drew its conclusions, some people rejoiced and some others saw their frustrations increase. So, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia passed the test and as of December 19th, 2009, their citizens can travel freely, finally, to the Schengen area. The citizens of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo which has just entered the visa dialogue, will continue to face “the odyssey of bureaucracy, expenses, long queues, frequent humiliation and disappointments”, in the words of Carlo Bollino.
Much debate accompanied and continues to accompany the Commission’s decision to leave out of the Schengen White List Albania, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. And this was to be expected and fair. As one of Albania’s main political analysts, Lutfi Dervishi puts it “Albanians, the most EU-enthusiasts of the region, translate the country’s EU integration into very practical terms – free movement to countries of the Union. For a country with a long tradition of isolation and with a third of its populace in EU countries as emigrants, free movement is more than a dream”. Indeed, as reconfirmed by the findings of the latest study of the Albanian Institute for International Studies of the perceptions and understanding of the Albanians of the EU integration process, the overwhelming popular support for EU integration in Albania rests on the prospect of free movement.
Two of the main features of the region-wide debate, as well as of voices from the Union itself, were about Bosnia and religion. Namely, many have pointed out that the Commission’s decision is extremely problematic, and bitter, in the case of Bosnia especially. “The factual reality created by the decision”, says Remzi Lani of the Media Institute, “is that the victims of the wars of the dissolution of Yugoslavia are left in quarantine, and the perpetrators are set free”.
The bitterness of this situation, however, must not be explained away with religion, the second issue. It is indeed an uncomfortable fact that all three countries that remain in the Schengen Black List, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, have Muslim majorities. In Bosnia, considering that the Croats and the Serbs will profit from the visa-free regime through their double citizenship, it is indeed only Bosniaks, the Muslims that will not move freely. Albanian opinion-makers agree, however, that this exposes no original intent, no ulterior motives. Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina had not fulfilled the conditions to any satisfactory degree at the time the Commission assessed their readiness. Albania, had in fact not produced a single biometric passport at the time, as both Remzi Lani and Lutfi Dervishi remind us. Despite the perceptions of some of EU discriminatory policies, as Petraq Pojani of the Albanian Council on Foreign Relations observes, “the issues of visas is one of those that our authorities have not managed to resolve for years. “We might be bitter about it”, Lani says, “but we had kept ourselves behind.”
Albania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister Ilir Meta also states that Albania was not ready, adding that there is no use in trying to give a name to the blame for that – Albania’s priority at the time was equipping voters with identity cards to pass the test of free and fair elections. All agree that there should be no excuse for any further delays, especially now that in the past four months the government has fulfilled most conditions. The year 2010 has been promised to us as the year of free movement. As Lutfi Dervishi states, “this ruling majority owes Albanians” and however close we might be to visa liberalisation, “the fact remains that Albania will be one of the last countries to rejoice”.
A mission of the European Commission assessing progress regarding document security has been in the country in the past days and others are expected to visit at the beginning of 2010.
