Visas Or Not

The report that the Greek and Croatian governments signed a bilateral agreement in Athens on March 10 which abolishes visas was noted by the public in Yugoslavia. To many the fact that Croats will no longer have to stand in line for hours, especially in the summer, to get a visa to go to Greece sounded like a betrayal by the country that is considered the only true friend of the Serbs.

The Greek foreign ministry said that visas had also been abolished under earlier agreements with the Czech republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia but added that a date had not been set for the abolishment of visas for other central and eastern Balkan states.

Then there was a report that Croats don't need visas to go to France and another which said Italy was seriously considering introducing visas for FRY citizens. To owners of the old former Yugoslavia passports (still used by Serbia and Montenegro) which allowed free travel to almost any country in the world got another painful reminder that they live apart from the rest of the world: signatories of the Shegen convention (nine EU countries, including Greece and Italy) are abolishing all passport controls among themselves as of March 26.

VREME asked staff at the Greek embassy in Belgrade to comment the abolishment of visa requirements for some former Yugoslav republics while keeping in place requirements for the FRY. The reply was that the abolishment or keeping place of visas should not be interpreted as an improvement or deterioration of relations between two states.

VREME asked Spiridon Hatzaras, the Greek press attaché, what the reasons for keeping visa requirements for FRY citizens were. His response: "I would like to change your question. Did we prevent anyone from going to Greece? No, of course we didn't. Last year, over 300,000 FRY citizens turned to us for visas and I really don't know of anyone who wanted to visit our country who was prevented from going. That means we are friendly countries. That also means your people are visiting Greece. The question of visas is linked to other parameters, primarily economic and social. Visas are not a sign that friendly relations do or don't exist. As an example I could mention our relations with the USA. We have very friendly relations with that country, strong economic and cultural ties, we are allies and a large Greek community lives in the US. Despite all that we have to get visas to go there."

Hatzaras said the visa issue was discussed by the Greek and Yugoslav foreign ministers and would be discussed in future. He added that the abolishment of visas is coming but it's hard to say when.

The one thing that he didn't mention is the large number of people from the FRY who want to go to Greece to work. Thousands outstayed their visas in the past few years trying to find jobs. Some of them hired out their passports to others or made statements that they had lost them when their visas expired. Greece does not have that problem with Croats and Slovenes.

Hatzaras said visas will certainly be abolished but who knows when which points to the conclusion that last summer's long lines in front of the embassy will be repeated this summer. Last year, the line was 24 hours long and there were incidents when the police had to intervene.

In 1993, the Greek embassy issued 180,656 visas to Yugoslavs. Last year, that number stood at over 300,000 and estimates are that interest in Greek holidays is rising.