Balkan EU visa deal hailed as 'giant step for Macedonia' 

"Macedonian citizens deserved the visa regime liberalisation and this is a success of the European idea in Macedonia," Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said, according to reports in the local media on Thursday. 

Gruevski added that Macedonia would step up efforts to get a date for launching EU accession negotiations. 

"It wasn't an easy process. Our strong will helped us overcome the problems. Macedonia proved it can win," Gruevski said. 

'Yes we can'

In Serbia, the country's president, Boris Tadić, described the Commission's recommendation to lift visa requirements as big news for Serbian citizens, media in Belgrade reported. 

He added that he was glad that other countries in the region would also benefit from visa liberalisation, which he said would raise the standard of living in the region. 

"Serbia is not only responsible for itself, but for regional cooperation, as the central state in South-East Europe," said Tadić. 

Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković echoed Tadić's sentiments, adding that as of 1 January 2010 citizens of Serbia would be able to travel to European countries without visas: "Their personal dignity will thus be restored". 

Cvetković added that the good news offered proof that the pro-EU government was on the right track. As diplomats had recently told EurActiv (12/05/09), the visa liberalisation deal was agreed in an attempt to pre-empt a surge of nationalism in the Balkans, fuelled by resentment over the slow pace of the EU accession process. 

All parliamentary parties in Montenegro congratulated yesterday's Commission decision, the country's daily Pobjeda writes. The leader of the Democratic Party of Socialists, Valentina Šćepanović-Radulović, is quoted as saying that all her country's citizens will benefit from the move, especially the young. 

Who will benefit? 

However, Branko Radulović, the deputy chairman of Montenegrin party 'Movement for Change', expected that only a minority would in fact take advantage of visa-free travel. 

"Those who were able to travel will do so also in the future, but the vast majority of Montenegro citizens will not be in that number," he indicated. 

Macedonian TV station A1 presented another perspective. With a GDP of $2,600 per capita, Macedonians are bound to leave their country to find employment abroad, even on the black market, experts believed. 

According to them, the most prone to leave lie among the 350,000 unemployed, who reportedly "are already packing".