Macedonia Celebrates EU Visa Scrapping

Skopje | 18 December 2009 | Sinisa-Jakov Marusic

Macedonia's youth was at the forefront of the visa liberalization campaign

As the scrapping of visas for citizens traveling to the European Union is set to become official on Friday at midnight, Macedonians celebrate with a massive party in Skopje's main square and a state lottery for a free trip to Paris.

Friday night has been declared a "white night," meaning that all clubs and bars will remain open until the early morning hours in celebration of the long-awaited scrapping of EU visas.

The central celebration will be held in the capital Skopje, where British DJ Fat Boy slim - a pioneers of electronic dance music, will perform at the main square, along with popular Balkan musician Zdravko Colic.

On Thursday evening, a state-sponsored lottery was held, and the 100 lucky winners will join a government delegation one a one-day trip to Paris to mark the occasion.

Deputy Prime Minister in charge of EU Integration Vasko Naumovski and Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska, as well as 20 of the cournthy's best students, will accompany the lottery winners.

Some 10,000 people played the lottery.

The EU recently lifted visa obligations for three Balkan states, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro. The holders of the new biometric passports with increased security standards will be entitled to visa-free travel to 25 members of the 27-nation bloc, except for Britain and Ireland.

Macedonians will also travel freely to Norway, Switzerland and Iceland, which are not part of the EU but apply the same visa regime.

The steep visa wall for most of the Balkans was introduced in the early 1990s during the bloody breakup of the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, of which Macedonia was a part.

The lifting of the visa wall is seen as a step towards eventual full EU membership for these three countries.

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Comments:

fyrom map
2009-12-18 11:51:44

At least they held up a map that doesn't incorporate Northern Greece and parts of Bulgaria... a step in the right direction.

sad people
2009-12-18 19:41:19

Is it a step in right or left, its totally not "at least"...But as long as some people are peace-less till they degrade something they even don't know it will not be the last...sad.. Macedonia is going forward....

Hey Marcos...about your comment
2009-12-19 11:50:45

Have you forgotten about the "Great Hellas" map's in many of the greek Embassies around the World? Depicting; The Republic of Macedonia, almost half of Albania and about 30% of Turkey's territory shown as greek !. Before you guy's accuse anyone of territorial pretences, why not inform them about your own Evil Intentions!? Hope you enjoyed reading the above.

Congratulations
2009-12-20 15:19:42

This is great for the youth of Macedonia. As a Australian born Macedonian you tend to take the freedom of travel for granted. Whilst holidaying in Macedonia earlier this year, many people I met, especially the younger generation, were very dis-heartened by the fact that they were not able to travel and explore the rest of Europe. This is a great development for those people.

Travel to Europe
2009-12-21 22:09:41

It is great that we can now more easily travel to the rest of Europe, with less paper work. The only problem is that more than 50% of the Albanians, and almost 40% of Macedonians can't afford to go to Europe...

Correction Georgio
2009-12-22 02:12:04

Georgaki get your facts straight for once-the map you refer to is a historical map showing Hellas' territorial gains and losses from independence from the Ottomans until the Modern Era including the Balkan Wars, WW1+2 Treaty of Sevres, Lausanne, etc-the Megali Idea concept has long been abandoned by Hellas unlike some other Balkanite nations. This is for your edification: http://www.pollitecon.com/html/reprints/assets/greek_expansionism_article.map.clip_image004.jpg If you actually bother to read and you'll see it says "ΙΣΤΟΡΙΚΟΣ ΧΑΡΤΗΣ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΛΑΔΟΣ"- "HISTORICAL MAP OF HELLAS" but then it's no surprise that you'll swallow up all that propaganda being fed to you. Sad.

whoopee
2009-12-22 09:25:35

hey, georgi, have you been to ... many Greek embassies around the world? Anyway, if you're one of the Slav Makedonskis now travelling visa-free, have a good time, it will give you a chance to relieve yourselves of the 19th century vmro inferiority complex...

EU visa scrapping
2009-12-28 12:35:34

Great news for the people of Macedonia, and another important step towards EU membership. A great shame, however, that the UK cannot participate in the relaxation of controls - but given the security issues involved, I hope that can be understood.

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Macedonia Celebrates EU Visa Scrapping