Schengen White List Project – in cooperation with European Stability Initiative (ESI), June 2009

EMA is the implementing partner in the “Schengen White List Project” of European Stability Initiative – ESI. This project aims at analyzing the relevant documents which have to do with country’s progress towards visa free regime.

These documents include:

–    Roadmaps;
–    Reports on activities and achievements of governments of Western Balkan countries sent to the European Commission;
–    Commission Assessments;
–    EC expert missions documents.

EMA, in cooperation with ESI, has published several documents which analyze the progress of Albania towards fulfilling the criteria for a visa free regime with Schengen countries.

In its 18 May 2009 Assessments of progress in roadmap towards visa free regime implementation by the Western Balkan countries, the European Commission used six distinct phrases to describe the achievements in each of the four blocks into which the requirements has been divided. (These four blocks are document security; illegal migration including readmission; public order and security; and external relations and fundamental rights). For the scorecard, EMA and ESI allocated a grade and colour to these phrases:

“meet the benchmarks” and “generally meets the benchmarks” = 1 and green
“meets a large majority of the benchmarks” and “meets a majority of benchmarks” = 2 and yellow
“on the right track, but…” and “does not yet fully meet the benchmarks” = 3 and red

When then looked at what the Commission and the EU national experts had written about progress on each individual requirement and also graded it (in a slightly more nuanced way, so the grades are 1, 1-, 2+, 2, 2-, 3+, 3, 3-) and allocated again the colours green, yellow and red. The grade reports are short overviews of the results of this exercise, while the “Full analysis Albania” shows our approach in greater details.

For a regional dimension of this project, you can visit ESI’s website: www.esiweb.org .

Below you can find the documents compiled jointly by EMA and ESI analysts on visa free regime.

Visa Grade Report Albania 23 June 2009

Visa table Albania 23 June 2009

Meeting conditions for Visa free Travel