27 May 2010 – Ambassador Dimitris Kourkoulas, Head of the European Union Delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, announced today that the European Commission has adopted a proposal to grant visa-free travel to the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Today’s proposal enables the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina to travel with biometric passports without a visa to the European Union countries participating in the commn visa policy (all EU Member States except UK and Ireland) and those associated to the Schengen area (Switzerland, Norway and Iceland). It is now up to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to take a final decision on the Commission’s proposal and we hope – we are optimistic – that citizens from Bosnia and Herzegovina will soon be able to enjoy the benefits of a visa-free regime,” Ambassador Kourkoulas told journalists.

Expressing his personal satisfaction that the proposal has been adopted just a few days before the EU-Western Balkan meeting that  will take a place on 2 June in Sarajevo, Ambassador Kourkoulas said the visa proposal is the result of intensive and hard work by the BiH authorities to meet the necessary conditions. He also commended the support of the EU member states, and particularly the Spanish EU Presidency.

“Bosnia and Herzegovina has made significant progress in improving passport security, in strengthening border controls, in reinforcing the institutional framework to fight organised crime and corruption, and in the areas of external relations and fundamental rights,” Ambassador Kourkoulas said.

However, he added that the country still needs to keep working on fulfilling the outstanding requirements of the roadmap. These are:

• to strengthen the capacities of law enforcement and to ensure the effective implementation of the legal framework for the fight against organised crime and corruption; • to continue implementing the Action Plan on establishing electronic data exchange between police and prosecution bodies; and • to ensure the harmonisation of the Entity and Brčko District criminal codes with the BiH criminal code.

Reminding that “Republika Srpska has already adopted an amendment to the criminal code, Ambassador Kourkoulas urged the authorities of Brcko District and the Federation of BiH to make efforts in order to meet this requirement.  “The European Commission will continue to monitor the efforts put in place to effectively tackle the outstanding issues and will report timely to the European Parliament and the Council on the findings of the monitoring exercise,” explained Kourkoulas, adding that the final implementation could take place during autumn..

Speaking abut the responsibilities which come with the visa free regime and the recent experience of a large number of asylum seekers coming from the Western Balkans counties already enjoying the benefits of the visa free travel, Ambassador Kourkoulas stressed that “in order to avoid the misuse of the visa-free regime and the possible repetition of a similar situation, it is fundamental that BiH takes all necessary measures to limit similar influxes of persons making unfounded asylum applications.”