Visa-free travel to EU for three Balkan states

The EU executive proposed allowing citizens of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, which have been promised eventual EU membership, to travel to the European Union without visas from the start of next year.
The European Commission said it hoped to make a similar proposal for Albania and Bosnia by the middle of next year if they meet EU standards.
The Commission said Macedonia had already met EU conditions and the concession for Serbia and Montenegro was dependent on their doing so by the time EU states approved the proposal.
It said offering visa-free travel to the states of the Western Balkans, all of which have been promised eventual EU entry, was a cornerstone of EU policy aimed at bringing stability to the region.
"Our proposal brings truly good news to the people of the Western Balkans … I know how much visa-free travel means to them," Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot said in a statement.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said it was the Commission's aim that Albania and Bosnia follow suit soon.
"If all the conditions are fulfilled, the Commission could envisage making a new proposal, which would include them, by mid-2010," he said.
The Commission said both countries needed to improve their efforts in fighting organised crime and corruption and in procedures for delivering passports and border control.
Residents of Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia last year, are not included in the plan, which will require citizens to have biometric passports and cover the border-free Schengen area of the 27-country European Union.
Schengen includes all EU states apart from Britain and Ireland, as well as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
Citizens of the former Yugoslavia used to be able to travel visa-free to Western Europe until Yugoslavia's break-up in the 1990s. Of the ex-Yugoslav states, only Slovenia is an EU member, but neighbouring Croatia already has visa-free status.
The plan to offer visa-free status to Serbia before Bosnia has faced criticism. The Green group in the European Parliament warned that the move would deepen ethnic divisions.
Bosnian Serb forces led by General Ratko Mladic massacred more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in July 1995. Mladic remains at large, something that has stalled Serbia's EU entry bid.