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On December 16, 2010, EWB conducted a training workshop in Kyiv entitled “How to achieve visa-free regime with the EU? The Western Balkan countries experience for Ukraine”. It was supported by the “East-East” programme of the International Renaissance Foundation

The event was attended by representatives of ministries, governmental and non-governmental think-tanks, media and NGOs. Public figures and leading experts, who took an active part in the visa liberalisation process for Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period of 2007-2009 and Bulgaria in 1990-2000, were invited as experts to share their knowledge on the substance of visa liberalisation process, the difficulties that arise on its way and means to overcome them.

The leading expert of NGO "Europe without Barriers" Oleksandr Sushko, in his opening remarks noted that Ukrainian NGOs, particularly "Europe without Barriers" contributed to Ukraine’s success to obtain the Action Plan on Visa Liberalisation and the new phase of visa liberalisation process has been launched with this decision.

Vladimir Petronijevic, the representative of NGO “Group 484” (Serbia) said that “Group 484” invited the representatives of relevant ministries to a joint discussion in 2005, when it started the work in this direction. This was the first obstacle and challenge, as most officials were not familiar to each other and had no awareness of the need to work together, and the society suffered from low level of awareness regarding visa-free regime conditions.

Nadya Dimitrova, the expert of the European Institute (Bulgaria), former senior official of Bulgarian Interior Ministry, said that several months ago she has been more skeptical about the chances of granting Ukraine the Action Plan. The expert sad that she worked in the government of Bulgaria from 1997 to 2001, and the experience of her country on the visa liberalisation regime with the EU is close to both the Balkan and Ukrainian cases, but at the same time, differs from them.

Sara Nikolic, the expert of Association Alumni of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies (Bosnia and Herzegovina) noted that being of her country in the "black Schengen list” created a sense of isolation and euroskepticism widely spread among the people. However, the successful implementation of the Roadmap criteria, became a success story primarily thanks to the civil society activism and media attention.

Andreja Stojkovski, the expert from Macedonian Centre for European Studies, said that before the visa liberalisation with the EU, the 70% of students from Macedonia have never traveled to the Schengen states. Today, according to experts’ words, approximately 70% of the population of Macedonia has biometric passports, however problems remain obvious as ordinary applicants usually wait several months to apply for biometric passport.

During the training workshop, experts discussed the major obstacles to visa-free regime between Ukraine and the EU and the way how Balkan countries experience may be used by Ukraine and other Eastern Partnership countries. The comprehensive research on this matter will be published by EWB in February 2011.