[...] Good piano performance. Thanks heaps for this!… if anyone else has anything it would be much appreciated. Great website http://www.en.Grand-Pianos.org Enjoy!…

However, what I mean is that this visa thing doesn’t do any good to EU countries themselves.

Until today, every Balkanian that has wanted to go in a Western European country, has managed to do so, with or without a visa.

If you stop these people from visiting EU countries, they think that EU countries are some kind of promised land or something, where you can’t go without some sacrifices, but abundance awaits you there.

If they can visit and witness with their own eyes that that land is better, but not a promised land with abundance, after all, they might not even leave their homes. You must know that it’s not so easy leaving your home and go to be an immigrant, the lowest scale of a richer society.
Most of emigrants start their journey with these thoughts, the thoughts of a promised land with abundance. And when they arrive, they wish they never came to that country. But it’s too late to turn back home, because they have invested for this trip a very big amount of money, they have taken a very big decision with their families, and their families wait big results from them.

And since they have gone illegally, they can do only illegal jobs… and this is convenient for EU employers who want to save in insurance and other employer taxes. But they pay these emigrants only for food and rent, nothing more.

The other option that remains, is the other illegal markets of work for them, which have abundance of money… the promised land… like prostitution and drug dealing, markets that EU countries offer in abundance…
Honest Balkanians might not do that, but they can’t even turn back home that fast. So they prefer taking their families there, illegally. At least they will see with their eyes why they don’t earn any big deal of money.

What I mean is that with these visas, EU will have more immigrants.

Let’s take Albania, for example. Albania has 3.5 million people.
Italy has 500.000 Albanian emigrants.
Greece almost 500.000 too.
An other 500 is spread around the world, Britain, France, Scandinavian Countries, North America.

So, one third of the country is already there. Who can go any more?

This visa thing stops only the honest Balkanians from visiting EU countries just as tourists, or whatever, the Albanians who do not will to undertake illegal actions and go there.
All people that do not have a problem with illegal travel in EU have always managed to go there, as long as EU has a lot of its own corrupted people who make this possible.

The ones “stuck”, as the writer says, are the ones who do not need to go and the ones who are satisfied with their life in their own country.

Although I am trying to see this latest development as good for the region I still fail to be excited.

1) I believe the visa regimes with the whole region have outlived their usefulness (of course here it is important to keep in mind the assumption that the EU is serious about integrating the whole region). The experience of the past 20 years shows that visa regimes have not prevented criminal elements from penetrating the EU, have not discouraged the young and not-so-young unemployed from crossing seas and mountains in search of better life. Why would this work now?

2) Visa regimes contribute to creating their own sort of criminality from the network of visa counterfeiters to the corruption of local officials and foreign embassies in issuing visas.

3) Visa regimes prevent what really matters for integration of these countries. That is, social, cultural, economic and business relationships with the EU. Worse, it can lead to further tensions between countries involved as for instance Macedonia and Montenegro could apply stricter rules to Albanian and Bosnian citizens now and on.

4) Overall I am left with the feeling of a quasi-failed regional project on the part of the EU. There seems to be a level of exasperation of the EU with the political elites of Albania and Bosnia (Kosovo is a special case here) and the visa regimes are among the few means, and probably the strongest, in pressuring these elites. This could explain the lack of political willingness of making any favors to those countries.

1) You’re right — Schengen only. My bad.

2) This is a good example of how the independence issue is warping thinking. The Kosovar government should be determined to get their people in ASAP, not smiling and saying “see, proves we’re not Serbia!”

3) Don’t get your hopes up. Remember, the visa regime is for visits only. And I suspect the Serbian government will be very, very understanding of Kosovar Serbs who want to have two addresses.

4) Excellent point!

Doug M.

For a lot of that time, it wasn’t much fun to be a non-Serb living anywhere near a Serb either…

1.
Just a note to say that the new visa regime is valid for Schengen area only. Thus, London (as well Dublin, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria and Liechtenstein) are out of reach for visa-free travel. However, other non-EU countries such as Iceland, Norway and (most importantly) Switzerland are included. I just wanted to point this out as you mentioned London in your post.

2.
The Kosovar government welcomed the exclusion of all Kosovar citizens from the new rules — because they think that anything that treats Kosova differently to Serbia strengthens their independence.

3.
I think this new visa regime might drive more Serbs out of Kosova than the post-war attacks — although older people will stay put. I can see most young people leaving places like Gracanica and not returning.

4.
Finally, I recall many of my Baltic friends telling me how they hated the visa-free travel to Europe prior to joining the EU. Yes, you could travel to Heathrow airport visa-free, however, the checks at the airport were just as thorough as those at the embassy, if not worst. At least at the embassy you get the second chance to take back additional documents if needed — no such luxuries in front of the immigration officer at the airport. What I’m trying to say is that you will still need to produce a lot of papers and documents (where you are going, how long you are staying, who is paying and how, return ticket to ‘country of origin’ and so on). Only this time you don’t have to queue outside the embassy. I can only imagine what sort of checks the Swiss will conduct for the ex-YU ‘tourists’!
Expect the complaints to continue, only this time not about embassies but about the treatments by immigration officers.

Bon voyage!

To put it moderately. It is not muttering, it is well know fact and reality, driven by official politics!

“Bosnia is a badly misgoverned little country,”

To put it moderately.

“As a self-proclaimed independent state”

Far from it. It is an imperial creation.