Bosnia: Free Travel at Risk

The European Commission is considering cancelling Bosnia and Herzegovina’s right to visa-free travel in the EU, Bosnian daily Dnevni Avaz claimed on Sept. 22.

According to a leaked communiqué from  advisor Muaz Dedajlic at the Bosnian Mission in Brussels, the EU-Western Balkans Ministerial Forum on Justice and Home Affairs urged authorities in Sarajevo to address the increase of asylum seekers from Bosnia to EU member states, particularly Belgium, or risk the imposition of control mechanisms by the Commission.

"The people we've talked to said the EC has bad news for Bosnia-Herzegovina. In a very short time, Bosnia-Herzegovina has gone from a country which had the best image regarding obeying the rules of the visa-free regime with the EU, to a country which has the second-highest number of asylum seekers, after Macedonia," the communiqué is quoted as saying by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, a news site.

Bosnia gained accession to the EU’s visa-free regime in Dec. 2010, while Kosovo is the only country in the Western Balkans whose citizens still require a visa to enter the EU.