The Balkans Freedom of Movement: Our Own European Palestine?
|
|
|
|
Written by Risto Karajkov
|
|
Monday, 08 October 2007
|
|
A fellow Hungarian shares the following story. “We Hungarians”, says he “were the most free of all the peoples in Eastern Europe during communist times. Once in three years we could travel out of the country without any restrictions.”
When a former Yugoslav hears this, their eyes open wide in bewilderment. Due to former Yugoslavia’s geopolitical position during the Cold War, and the much gentler grip of its regime , compared to the countries from the Soviet block (Yugoslavia was non-aligned) its citizens were by and large free to roam the world in the post WW II period. Before that, it hardly mattered in today’s sense of the word. But now tables have turned. The former poor Eastern Europeans the Yugoslavs pitied – turned European. And before too long they forgot how it was to be trapped inside. They become as relentless as the old members of the club they joined, if not more. Former Yugoslavs on the contrary got the other end of the stick. A few bloody succession wars and raging nationalism resurrected the images from the beginning of the 20 th century; the “powder keg”; bloodthirsty tribes slaughtering each other, ethnic feud. Southeastern Europe turned into “the Balkans”. In parallel, two other major trends were happening. The first one was the end of the bipolar freeze which brought about the issue of migration, globally. Second, the expansion and ever closer integration of the European Union which exacerbate the regional dimension of the same issue. On 1 January 2007, with the last EU enlargement (with Bulgaria and Romania) the people of the Western Balkans (minus Croatia) woke up to realize that they are completely surrounded by the thick walls of Europe. They woke up to realize they cannot move out. The wall was not built over night. In the beginning it was the Schengen agreement. Then the subsequent enlargements which installed new and ever more complex restrictions, as the new member states were compelled by the old EU to protect the new outer borders. All until this year, when the Balkans found itself completely surrounded. It would be far too tedious to try to explain the complexity of this new political reality for the people from the Balkans. Instead, let’s just say that it imposes a heavy to impossible transaction cost to the functioning of the Balkan economy. A businessman planning a business trip through a few new EU member states and a few of the old ones would have to spend a month (in the least) obtaining visas. Anyone confronted with such a challenge, realizing on top of that the amount of working hours he/she would have to spend in all the different consulates, would simply give up. Not to mention the cost. Many estimates have pointed out that a significant share of the financial aid the EU gives to theses countries is offset by what they spend on visas. Why not simply reduce or completely withdraw aid in exchange for lifting of the visas? Each of the Balkans governments would instantly agree to such a deal. In the meantime Brussels bureaucrats cry their lungs out with the worn our phrase of how the regional integration of the Balkans is critical for its rapprochement with the Union. Can there be a better example of how much political rhetoric can be divorced from political reality? Can there be a blunter instance of how deeds defy words? How can one integrate regionally if they cannot move out? The visa prices and the example of difficulty of travel above are merely the tip of the iceberg. The long term economic cost will far outweigh the short term one, which is nevertheless gigantic. How can these countries have a shipping industry for example? Their truckers lost their businesses. Customers want reliability; they do not want to hear that the consular clerk (who gets to decide) had a bad day. How will companies promote their exports and fight for a market abroad? And in a longer term – how will they ever integrate? How can the young Balkan businessmen of today be expected to create way for the global integration of their economies when they are inasmuch likely not to be able to find their way around a larger international airport? How would they, when they have never seen one? In addition, is the economic argument really necessary in order to explain why the revoking of an essentially political freedom, which a people had enjoyed largely throughout modernity, is simply historically unjust? EU officials denounce Balkan nationalism but turn their heads at the statistic that over 70% of young people in the region have never traveled abroad. Not exactly the prerequisite for a cosmopolitan mindset. In the meantime the EU continues the redundant chorus about the promising European future of the Balkan countries, and celebrates the high approval ratings for the enlargement in accession candidates. There is a point which perhaps is not sufficiently well understood in Brussels. For the vast majority of the people in the Balkans, Europe is a synonym of visa free travel, of freedom to move. So when they see the high approval ratings, it is actually people’s despair they see. It appears that at least some people in Brussels have started to grasp the detrimental effect of their policy on the Balkans, and likely the hypocrisy of the rhetoric. The EU signed partial visa liberalization agreements with the governments in the region guaranteeing easy visa for certain categories of people; students, businessmen, researches. The deal is to become effective next year but it is yet to be seen how it will actually look in reality. It is very possible that it will be too little too late. The EU needs to lift the visas now, not in five years. It also needs to lift the visas unconditionally, not pending completely unrelated reforms. The fear of migration is overblown. If all the Macedonians boarded buses one Friday afternoon and left the country, they would still be fewer than all the Romanians who migrated abroad. If all the Montenegrin labor force did it, it could perhaps match the size of Bulgarian one in France and Spain? And once again, the rural poverty (which feeds migration) in the countries of former Yugoslavia (with perhaps the exception of Kosovo) is simply not comparable to the one in the countries from the former Soviet block. Fifty years of developmental difference does not go away just like that. Not matter what the rhetoric of the day is.
If the EU wants to help, it should stop hindering. It should lift the visas. Or alternatively, it should simply stop talking that it wants to help.
|
|
Last Updated ( Monday, 08 October 2007 )
|
|
|
Image de la semaine |
Non ce n'est pas une affiche de campagne en Turquie, mais bien celle du parti socialiste autrichien (SPÖ) pour les élections d'octobre prochain à Vienne. Après les affiches de campagne de Strache qui plaide pour le " pur sang viennois" c'est la course au populisme?
Wien-Wahl: Politiker sprechen türkisch: 200.000 Neoösterreicher Wähler haben Migrationshintergrund. Die Parteien buhlen um ihre Stimmen - gerne auch in einer Fremdsprache.( Kurier 25/08/2010)
section: Portofolio
|
|
NewropMag Blog Press Review |
|
mod_dbrss2 AJAX RSS Reader poweredbysimplepie
|
|
Cartoon of the week |
(click on the image to enlarge)
|
|
Focus |
|
La deuxième rencontre du cycle
“LA DEMOCRATIE EN DANGER”,
consacrée à la Justice en Europe
Le lundi 13 septembre
de 19h30 à 22h00
Salons de l’Aveyron
17 Rue de l'Aubrac
75012 Paris
 A l’heure où les discours et les mesures sécuritaires et judiciaires se durcissent dans nombreux pays européens, où l’on sait les atteintes aux droits les plus élémentaires et aux principes fondamentaux des simples citoyens, quels traitements sont réservés à ceux qui tiennent les pouvoirs politiques, financiers, économiques entre leurs mains? Une conférence-débat organisée dans le cadre du cycle La démocratie en danger par Les Amis de Beppe Grillo à Paris et le NewropMag.
Intervenants: les députés européens Luigi De Magistris, Sonia Alfano et Rosario Crocetta ; Harald Greib, vice-président de Newropeans en charge des affaires des institutions européennes ; Eric Alt, magistrat, membre de l’association MEDEL (magistrats européens pour la démocratie et les libertés) et de l’association Anticor, et Corinne Lepage, députée européenne et ex Ministre de l’environnement, engagée dans la lutte contre la corruption politique et financière.
Parmi les sujets de discussion:
- L'infiltration des organisations criminelles et le vide législatif relatif en Europe
- Les récentes dépénalisations des crimes financiers et économiques en Italie, en France et leur traitement au sein des institutions européennes
- Présomption d'innocence ou de culpabilité? L'exemple de la “loi bâillon” sur les écoutes téléphoniques qui viole les recommandations de l’OSCE concernant l’emploi de sources et de matériels nécessaires aux investigations journalistiques au service de la démocratie.
Contacts:
Micaela Bracciaferri, Coordinatrice “Les Amis de Beppe Grillo à Paris »
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Marianne Ranke-Cormier, Rédactrice en chef du NewropMag
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Entrée libre sur pré-inscription auprès de
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
|
|
|
Podcast: "La France en 2020" - France Inter "Le Téléphone sonne" |
|
|
|
Newsletter |
|
Keep yourself updated with our FREE newsletters now!
|
|
Le 22 juillet dernier, Franck Biancheri, Directeur des études de 
