Risto Karajkov argues at Newropeans Magazine (silly name, interesting site) that the EU should ease visa restrictions on the people of former Yugoslavia (minus Slovenia and Croatia), who this January 1 “woke up to realize that they are completely surrounded by the thick walls of Europe. They woke up to realize they cannot move out. […] A businessman planning a business trip through a few new EU member states and a few of the old ones would have to spend a month (in the least) obtaining visas. Anyone confronted with such a challenge, realizing on top of that the amount of working hours he/she would have to spend in all the different consulates, would simply give up. Not to mention the cost. Many estimates have pointed out that a significant share of the financial aid the EU gives to theses countries is offset by what they spend on visas.”

EU Business reports that senior European Union officials expect a final decision to end passport and security checks at land and sea borders between the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia and their adjacent older EU member states in November, meaning freer travel by the Christmas holidays. Airports are scheduled to join the zone next March.

Meanwhile, the EU Observer reports that non-members (so far) Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia have signed visa agreements to make travel to the EU easier and less costly for their citizens. The Balkan countries are pushing for visa requirements to be eliminated altogether; the EU remains hesitant.

Welcome to the new and improved EuroBubba blog. I want to do some things here that I can’t do on the old hosted blog at wordpress.com, so this is where I’ll be posting from now on. There’s not really a lot of content back at the old blog — it was only up for about six weeks and I didn’t really write much during that time — but feel free to have a look if you’re interested.