Tanja Fajon: The Balkans’ Brussels Champion

When the European Parliament voted on October 7 to lift visa requirements on Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania, the Facebook update of the Slovene MEP Tanja Fajon, read exuberantly: “We won.”

With 538 votes in favour and only 47 against, the parliament overwhelmingly endorsed her report, which said that both countries had met all the obligations of the EU’s visa liberalization “roadmap”.  

The 39-year-old native of the capital, Ljubljana, who built her career working on TV, radio and the newspaper Republika, before being elected as a Social Democrats to the European parliament in 2009, has emerged as a champion of freedom of movement.

“A year ago, when Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia joined the ‘white Schengen’ list, we promised the same for Albania and Bosnia as soon as they met the standards,” Fajon said recently.  “Now is the time to keep this promise.”

For the better part of the last decade, Fajon was Brussels correspondent for TV Slovenja, following the process of transformation in the Balkans and the region’s accelerating efforts to become part of the European family.

As Rapporteur for the visa liberalization process, Fajon traveled frequently to Bosnia and Albania, working with governments and civil society in Tirana and Sarajevo to help them fulfill the visa roadmap criteria.

Drawing on her experience as a journalist, she was able to clearly communicate the need for the reforms detailed in the visa roadmap to local audiences.

In so doing, she became one of the most recognized EU officials in the region.  

Reflecting on her motives in trying to draw the two Balkan countries into the white Schengen list, she places them in a broader European perspective.  

“The Balkans is part of Europe,” she said recently, “and both parts [of Europe] will benefit from a visa-free regime for its citizens.”

A version of this article was published Albanian daily newspaper Gazeta Shqiptare October 11, 2010.