Serbs want visa-free travel to EU countries: poll

(BELGRADE) - More than three quarters of Serbian citizens consider visa-free travel to the European Union a major issue for their country which hopes to gain entry to the 27-member bloc, a poll showed Thursday.

"A significant number of citizens, 82 percent, consider the right to travel to EU countries without visas is very important for Serbia," said Milica Delevic, head of the Serbian government's EU integration office.

Only 10 percent of Serbs believed the lifting of the visa regime was unimportant, according to the opinion poll of 1,023 respondents conducted for her office in May.

Belgrade's hopes of joining the EU are being held up by the Netherlands, notably because Bosnian Serb genocide suspect Ratko Mladic remains on the run, most likely in Serbia.

Only 13 percent of the seven million citizens in Serbia travelled last year to an EU country demanding visas, according to the survey. The figure excludes the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo.

EU Enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn said last week he was "reasonably confident" that Brussels would recommend the lifting of visas for Serbian citizens in late July.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic estimated last week that the possible lifting of visas for the so-called Schengen zone was currently the "most urgent issue" between the EU and his country.

Delevic said that the number of those supporting Serbia's integration with the EU has not changed since the previous poll in December, with 61 percent of those favouring the Balkan republic's integration into the bloc.

Some 14 percent of citizens were against EU membership.

Serbia's government, a coalition of pro-European parties, aspires to lead the former Yugoslav republic to full membership in the European Union by 2014.