Visa madness
A few weeks ago we published a report on the EU visa regime for the Balkans, arguing that it needs to be liberalised and that the EU's policies are deeply counter-productive. It's had a number of very positive spin-offs, including contact with a Novi Sad NGO who have been collecting the most insane examples of EU bureaucracy in action for honest Balkan travellers wanting to visit Western Europe.
Further confirmation has reached me today, in the form of an email from the Serbian writer, Zoran Živković, who tells me: As I said in one of my recent interviews, with my red communist passport I could have entered all but two countries in the world, while now, with my blue passport, the very symbol of "freedom and democracy", there are only two states left where I can enter without a visa...
In the same interview I also mentioned a personal episode that tells more about the hypocrisy of the current EU bureaucracy than entire volumes. I was invited by my publisher to a Schengen [ie EU other than UK/Ireland] country to take part in the launch of a series of my books just published there. I didn't get a visa, however, because I simply refused to provide a medical certificate, worth 120 euros, that I, a 57 year old male, was not pregnant. That certificate wasn't on the list of officially required documents for a visa, but still was needed unofficially with the prime purpose to discourage and humiliate applicants...
If this is Europe we are all supposed to eagerly wish to join, then I'll be the first one to vote against it. Let Europe have only my books if I am not good enough for it...
Further confirmation has reached me today, in the form of an email from the Serbian writer, Zoran Živković, who tells me: As I said in one of my recent interviews, with my red communist passport I could have entered all but two countries in the world, while now, with my blue passport, the very symbol of "freedom and democracy", there are only two states left where I can enter without a visa...
In the same interview I also mentioned a personal episode that tells more about the hypocrisy of the current EU bureaucracy than entire volumes. I was invited by my publisher to a Schengen [ie EU other than UK/Ireland] country to take part in the launch of a series of my books just published there. I didn't get a visa, however, because I simply refused to provide a medical certificate, worth 120 euros, that I, a 57 year old male, was not pregnant. That certificate wasn't on the list of officially required documents for a visa, but still was needed unofficially with the prime purpose to discourage and humiliate applicants...
If this is Europe we are all supposed to eagerly wish to join, then I'll be the first one to vote against it. Let Europe have only my books if I am not good enough for it...