Dear Sir or Madam,
European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) and King Baudouin Foundation (KBF) have great pleasure to invite you to take part in the conference "Does it really matter? Visa facilitation in the Western Balkans: Monitoring of the new agreements". The event will be held on 10 December 2008 in the Crown Plaza Hotel Europe, in Brussels, Belgium.
The Visa Facilitation Agreements (VFA) signed by the EU with five countries of the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) came into force on the 1 January 2008. They were intended to facilitate "people to people" contacts between the citizens of the EU and WB and allow certain categories of citizens to travel and conduct business in the Schengen zone without over-burdensome administrative procedures.
However, a monitoring conducted in the region by local organizations has showed that the implementation of these agreements by member states is defective and that the VFAs are simply not achieving results for which they were designed. Moreover, striking differences in implementation of the VFAs between different EU member states have been recorded.
If you would like to attend this event we kindly ask you to confirm your presence by replying to this e-mail before Friday 21 November 2008.
We sincerely hope that this project will appeal to you and that you will join us for this conference.
Here is the draft programme of the conference:
Does it Really Matter? Visa Facilitation in the Western Balkans:
Monitoring of the new Agreements
International Conference
10 December 2008,
Venue: Crown Plaza Brussels Europa Hotel
Address: 107 rue de la Loi
Brussels, Belgium
08:30 - 09:00 Registration
09:00 - 09:30 Keynote address: Jacques Barrot, Vice President of the European Commission, Responsible for Justice, Freedom and Security (TBC)
Discussion Q&A
09:30 - 10:45 Panel 1: Presentations of the findings of the hotline and survey reports on visa facilitation in Western Balkans
Issues for debate:
* What are the convergences in the survey and hotline results in the five countries?
* Have the visa facilitation agreements done their homework ? triggered people to people contacts among citizens of the EU and Western Balkans?
* What are the main findings of the analysis of surveys accomplished with visa applicants? Do both reports draw the same conclusions?
* Have the advantages come through: multiple entry visas, easier access to the special categories of population, lower issuing costs, etc?
* Are the visa facilitation agreements worth amending? What mechanism could be put in place to evaluate and control the implementation of the agreements?
Chair: Amra
Seleskovic, Director, Vesta Association, Bosnia - Herzegovina
Panel: Leszek
Chajewski, Battory Foundation - Survey Report
Kenan Hadzimusic, Project Manager, European Citizen Action Service - Hotline Report
Ditmir Bushati, Executive Director, European Movement Albania, Albania
Discussion Q&A
10:45 - 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 - 12:30 Panel 2: From visa facilitation to visa liberalization
Issues for debate:
* What are the next steps for advocating visa liberalization?
* Could a common visa code between member states constitute a good tool to insure more uniform visa implementation?
* What are the convergences with other studies accomplished in Eastern Europe?
* What is the role of the National governments in Western Balkans in the visa liberalization process?
* Is the decision to liberalize the visa system with Western Balkans intrinsically of a political nature?
Chair:
Daliborka Uljarevic, Executive Director, Centre for Civic Education, Montenegro (TBC)
Panel: Jelko
Kacin, Member of the European Parliament, Slovenia (TBC)
H.E. Pierre Sellal, French Ambassador to the EU, Brussels (TBC)
Alexandra Stiglmayer, Senior Analyst, European Stability Initiative, Brussels
Tanja Hafner-Ademi, Coordinator of Balkan Civil Scoiety Development Network, Macedonia
Discussion, Q & A
Concluding Remarks
12:30 - 13:15 Lunch Break
END OF THE CONFERENCE
With our best regards,
Kenan Hadzimusic
Project Manager
ECAS - European Citizen Action Service
83, Rue du Prince Royal
1050 Brussels
Tel: +32 2 548 04 93
Fax: +32 2 548 04 99
E-mail: kenan.hadzimusic@ ecas.org
Website: www.ecas-citizens. eu
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