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Decision on visa regime expected on November 8
22. October 2010. | 06:59
Source: BH Daily News
EU member countries agreed yesterday that a decision on visa liberalization for BH and Albania would be reached by their foreign ministers in a session scheduled for November 8 and 9, and that is when a date will be known from which their citizens would be able to travel to the EU without visa
EU member countries agreed yesterday that a decision on visa liberalization for BH and Albania would be reached by their foreign ministers in a session scheduled for November 8 and 9, and that is when a date will be known from which their citizens would be able to travel to the EU without visa
EU members have reached technical and political understanding on this, and it was welcomed by Alexandra Stiglmayer, the head of the White Schengen List programme.
"This is excellent news. We have been saying the entire time that BH and Albania had met all conditions for visa liberalization, and should be rewarded. We hope now that a final decision would be reached on November 8", she said. It is expected that a no-visa regime would come into force in the course of December.
Comments (1)
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22. October 2010. 21:18:20
| Historian
2
Albanians are overwhelmingly thrilled they soon may be able to become part of the so-called Schengen list and travel without a visa for 90 days to most of EU, but they forget to put this in the proper context.
For one thing, Schengen includes most of South America, with countries such as Nicaragua with a per capita GDP of $900, and excludes European countries such as Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine (see Wikipedia entry below).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EU_visa_lists.png
Why? Probably because Spain needs illegal immigrants from
South America to work in its agriculture and construction industries, and
the absence of an entry visa supplies it with cheap, unskilled, Spanish-speaking South American labor.
It's humiliating to have South America travel visa-free to Europe before actual European countries. It demonstrates where EU's priorities really lie.
If North Korea abandoned communism, do you really think China would take
20 years before helping them re-build? If Cuba abandoned communism, do you think the US would wait 20 years before stepping in?
I would prefer to see Albania as a US territory like Puerto Rico than
getting thrown a bone by the EU 20 years after communism. After all, while European powers tried to dismember Albania at the end of World War I, it was US president Woodrow Wilson who stepped in and saved its integrity in 1919. By throwing the Schengen bone 20 years too late, the EU may have fooled almost all Albanians, but it cannot fool a historian.
The EU is led by the nose by France, whose people think they are better than everyone else, and who work so little and rebel so much they can't afford to help anyone but themselves.
Only an Anglo-German alliance represents credible and viable EU policy, and until that gradually takes over, the Western Balkans will continue to languish in their own petty problems and continue to receive farcical help from the French-led EU.