Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-11-Speech-3-235"
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"Madam President, I wish to reply to the question put by Mrs Corazza Bildt and to say that the Swedish Presidency has indeed been very active in this process which, as Mrs Fajon has just ably explained, enables us to offer a number of citizens from the Member States concerned, and young people in particular, the possibility of engaging and interacting more with this Europe, which they are, at times, rather unfamiliar with.
It is true that this proposal represents an historic stage in the development of European short-stay visa policy within the context of our relations with the countries of the Western Balkans. Moreover, the Commission welcomes the adoption of this legislative proposal by both the European Parliament and the Council. Everyone is aware of its major political impact and of the sensitive nature of the issue, which affects all of the citizens of the countries concerned.
I understand Parliament’s position. I would like, in this connection, to confirm the Commission’s strong commitment to monitor closely the fulfilment, by all of the countries concerned, of all the criteria laid down in the road map. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia had already been the subject of a positive assessment; the dialogue was therefore concluded with that country. In October, Serbia and Montenegro hosted missions led by the Commission, in association with the experts from the Member States, and those missions confirmed that all of the criteria of the respective road maps had been fulfilled properly.
We are going to follow the same method for Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Despite the very significant progress made over the last few months, Bosnia and Albania have not yet been able to complete the necessary reforms requested in the road map to justify the exemption of the visa requirement. However, as you just said, Mrs Fajon, it is already very encouraging for them to hear that their neighbours already have this option of being exempted from the visa requirement, and I can confirm to you that I personally will do everything in my power to ensure that Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina can obtain this visa exemption as quickly as possible, as you want.
I invite Parliament, which, with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, will be a colegislator in the field of visas, to support the structured method of dialogue on the liberalisation of visas, which is the method followed by the Commission, because a different approach would cause confusion without really changing the visa regime. It would create false hopes and would be liable to slow down the efforts made by the countries in question to implement the reforms required by the road maps.
At this stage, we are keeping Albania and Bosnia in Annex I to the regulation, while reaffirming the European Union’s commitment to help these two countries meet the criteria in their road map, and thus to be exempted from the visa requirement in accordance with the procedures in force.
In this context the Commission supports the text of the joint political declaration, which confirms this strong commitment by the Union to implement as quickly as possible the second stage of this visa liberalisation process for the citizens of Albania and Bosnia, Mrs Fajon.
There you have it, Madam President. I believe that this is a very important point that shows the Balkan States just how attentive Europe is to their expectations and desires."@en1
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