Shengen is the New Berlin Wall

09 November 2006

AEGEE-Skopje, JEF Macedonija, the Union of High-School Students of Macedonia, the Youth Education Forum, Balkan IDEA and the Association of Scouts organized street action against the visa regime for citizens of Macedonia, under the motto �Visa, No Thanks!�

Several hundreds of activists of the organizers joined the protest walk that started in front of the Government of Macedonia and ended in front of the building that houses the Delegation of European Commission in Skopje.

According to Leon Bakracevski, the date for the protest was carefully selected to coincide with the date of the fall of Berlin Wall.

�Today, the Shengen wall is danger for the realization of European integrations and spread of democratic values in Europe�, said Bakracevski in the publicly read message to the EC Delegation in Skopje.

According to the organizers, the existence of the Shengen regime strikes hardest at the youth. For as long as Macedonian youth is practically imprisoned in its own country, we can�t discuss the European dimensions in education, issues of mobility, democracy and tolerance.

�The inability to experience other cultures and other worldviews results in the development of the ghetto-logic. It creates a vicious circle, we behave like ghetto inhabitants because of the visas, and we can�t get a visa because we come from the ghetto�, say the organizers.

Only recently, Macedonian media reported that the local organizations of AEGEE-Europe in 280 universities didn�t receive their funds, because Jovica Karanfilov, elected Director of AEGEE in charge of distribution of funds, could not arrive in time in Brussels because the Belgian Embassy wouldn�t issue a visa. Similar problems were faced by the Boyscout Association, during a recent trip to the UK.

The action is organized simultaneously in Brussels (with the support from umbrella international organizations), Skopje, Vilnius, Belgrade, Nis, Ankara, Istanbul, Edinburgh, Riga, Berlin and other capital cities of Europe. In Berlin, the action will take place in the site where the Berlin Wall once stood.

Under the auspices of the action, the participants signed three huge panels with demands to abolish the visa regime. Several Macedonian rock-groups, led by internationally popular ska-band �Superhics�, performed in front of the EC Delegation, in support of the action.