MEP Tanja Fajon meets Albanian students and civil society

On 23 October 2010, European Movement in Albania (EMA) organized the event “MEP Tanja Fajon meets Albanian students and civil society”. This activity was organized in the framework of the OSFA supported project: “The visa liberalization with Albania: How to make it a success story”, focusing at an information campaign on the rights and obligations deriving from the visa liberalization.

The meeting was welcomed by Mr. Gledis Gjipali, Executive Director of EMA. He expressed the gratitude to MEP Tanja Fajon for her contribution in this important process for Albania and Western Balkans as well.

 Mrs. Tanja Fajon, Rapporteur of the European Parliament on the visa liberalization process, started her speech by stressing that the visa liberalization will intensify the economic and people to people contacts. She paid a particular attention to the physiological aspect that visa liberalization carries for the Albanian citizens and especially for young people. Mrs. Fajon underlined that this process was based upon mutual trust among state and non state actors within the Albanian context as well as between Albania and European Union. “An intensive and geographic wide information campaign is crucial to prevent the negative experiences coming from the region” – pointed out Mrs. Fajon. The increased number of asylum seekers after the summer period has amplified the concerns of the EU Member States, facing this phenomenon, which jeopardizes the success of the process. For that reason she emphasized the significance of informing the citizens that visa liberalization doesn’t mean traveling with the aim to work or live abroad. Regarding the perspective of Kosovo to be included in the visa liberalization dialog, Mrs. Fajon pointed out that Kosovo is an important element in the entire mosaic of the Western Balkan countries, thus it will not remain a black hole in the region. The Kosovo authorities have already started unilaterally their preparation to be included in the visa liberalization dialog and initiated to undertake reforms following the example of countries of the region. However, this process requires more efforts taking into consideration that the control for meeting the benchmarks for the Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina was more demanding compared with that of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro.

Executive Director of the Open Society Foundation in Albania (OSFA), Mr. Andi Dobrushi, was focused on the role that civil society has played in this process. He emphasized several concrete steps such as joint declarations that OSFA in cooperation with other representatives of the civil society has undertaken at national and regional level. Furthermore, OSFA will continue to contribute in underpinning the information campaign on the visa liberalization for different target groups.

Mrs. Blerta Hoxha, policy researcher at EMA, presented the key findings of the Monitoring Report on the conclusion of the visa liberalization process. Beyond explanation of the chronological background of the process, she focused on analyzing the outstanding benchmarks of the Visa Liberalization Roadmap as well as the last debate within the EU institutions for the conclusion of this process. She underlined that the steps undertaken in the framework of the visa liberalization process were highly important as they are connected with the democratization of the country. In the end of her speech, Mrs. Hoxha addressed some recommendations to all the stakeholders involved in this process in order to make the visa liberalization a success story.

In the end, the meeting was followed up by an interactive discussion between the panelists, students, representatives of civil society, universities and media. The participants have touched upon the importance topics such as the impact that the Albanian political situation has towards the progress of this process; if the rate of skepticism of the EU Member State was related with the accomplishment of the standards by Albanian authorities or to the experiences with the countries of the region; ect.

The meeting was widely covered by electronic and printed media.