By ANDI BALLA
A bus full of Macedonian and Serb citizens left Brussels for the Balkans this week. The passengers, mainly ethnic Albanians from northern Macedonia and southern Serbia, were voluntarily going home after finding out they were conned into traveling to Belgium. They had heard they would get free housing, a free monthly allowance and jobs — all they had to do is ask for asylum. And thanks to the newly-instituted visa-free regime with those two countries, they could just pick up and go to Belgium and many other places in Europe.
It is exactly this scenario that makes Europeans afraid of removing visas from poorer countries. There might have been some that genuinely feel discriminated in the crop, but these were largely economic migrants, and Belgium sent a clear message — there would be no asylum granted to anyone from the Balkans in 2010.
Most citizens of Albania were naturally alarmed by the news of the asylum seekers. As they wait for their own visa wall to fall this summer, there is fear that what happened with the neighbors would lead EU authorities to postpone giving Albania visa-free travel.
So far the EU officials have not indicated that would be the case. One can only hope they won’t use what happened in the neighboring countries as a reason to further postpone Albania’s visa-free travel.
However, there is already talk in Tirana that the visa-free travel by summer, which the EU promised a few weeks ago, might not happen — either because EU’s own bureaucratic machine needs more time or because of the political crisis in Albania or even because Albanian officials will have managed to not meet the criteria in time.
We can only hope these scenarios won’t materialize.
If they do, and further delays do happen, it will really alienate the common Albanian. It won’t matter that it might have been the fault of the Albanian politicians and bureaucrats or even the poor and uninformed people who want to move to the EU rather than just visit. The average Albanian will be just as mad at the EU as any Albanian that might be to blame for the delay.
However, what happened in Macedonia and Serbia is also good news for Albania. If nothing else, it’s an excellent educational tool for the population at large that visa-free means you get to visit, but not the right to work, much less to benefit from the generous welfare programs offered by some European states.
The EU should not delay lifting visas for Albania for another simple reason. If too many Albanians go to look up for work or ask for asylum, instead of just visiting, visas can always be reinstated. For example, just a few weeks ago, Canada reinstated visas for the Czech Republic when too many Czech citizens were claiming asylum once in Canada.
In the end, it’s vital for Albanian European hopes that no more delays take place. It has been 20 years since Albania ended its self-imposed Communist isolation. It’s high time for visa-imposed isolation to end as well.
