The Berlin wall fell 20 years ago, and another one, our own private Balkan wall, is about to fall down – at least partially. On November 11th, the European Parliament will confirm the decision to cancel visa requirements for citizens of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. The visa-free travel should start from 19th of December 2009.
This “visa wall” is somewhat similar to Berlin wall in a way that it prevented people from going where they wanted to. You don’t really think about the freedom of travel until you lose it, and most Balkan countries lost that freedom some 17-18 years ago. In this period, the only Serbian citizens that had no problems whatsoever in getting a visa and traveling freely across Europe were politicians, high-ranking criminals and folks stars (which, ironically enough, were exactly the sorts of people the Schengen countries were trying to keep out).
Now that the visa wall is beginning to crumble, there is still one question – when will the Bosnians, Albanians and Kosovo residents without Serbian citizenship be allowed to travel freely? Surprisingly enough, this is the question almost nobody from Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia cares about – and we should understand better than many other nationalities what’s it like not being able to travel freely.
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