Balkan citizens rejoice after EU scraps visas
(BELGRADE) - Citizens of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia welcomed the European Union's decision on Monday to allow them visa-free travel, but wondered when they might have the money to enjoy their new freedom.
"This is very good news," said a young woman in central Belgrade.
"I am so happy that I will be able to travel as my parents could. They talked so much about that," she said, referring to a nostalgic time when Yugoslav passports allowed Serbs to travel throughout Europe without visas.
"But of course it will depend on resources," she added.
The EU agreed on Monday to extend visa-free travel to the three Balkan states starting from December 19, a move long-awaited by citizens who complained of complicated and "humiliating" visa application procedures.
Serbs, Montenegrins and Macedonians with a biometric passport can travel as early as Christmas and spend up to 90 days in most of the EU, as well as in Iceland, Switzerland and Norway. But they will not be able to work.
Belgrade has issued around 1.5 million biometric passports, according to a European source, but surveys show that 70 percent of young people in Serbia have never travelled abroad.
Nemanja and Ivan, two young Belgraders, were delighted with the news.
"If we had money, we and other students would use it to travel," said the 23-year-old Nemanja.
"Everybody wants to travel, but people's financial situation is not so good," said Ivan, 24.
The Balkans have been particularly hard hit by the global economic crisis.
"Having spent 20 years in a cage, it certainly is good news, but I don't know if we will have the necessary funds to leave this cage," said Petar, a student in the Montenegrin capital Podgorica.
"After so many years we can finally live as normal people, without being humiliated in front of embassies" to obtain a visa, said Emilija, a retired woman.
"It is great that visas are lifted, it should have been done long ago. But better late then never," said Zoran Ivanovski, a 53-year-old businessman in the Macedonian capital Skopje.
He will continue to travel to nearby countries like Greece, Bulgaria or Turkey, but the "recession is not the moment" for tourism, he said.
"I can travel wherever I want, but there is a tiny problem: to find money," said Lidija Nikolova, 43, teacher.
Mirko, 56, welcomed the prospect of young Balkan citizens travelling freely to the European Union but said it was out of the question for himself to go.
"Especially after the bombings I no longer want to see it," he said, referring to the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Serbia over late president Slobodan Milosevic's war policy in Kosovo.
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