Visa, USA: Albania is not ready

 

The electoral campaign in Albania is expected to be interesting, at least in propaganda terms. “With our deepest reforms we lifted the visa regime with Europe. With other deep reforms we will lift the visa regime with the United States of America, and you will be able to move freely throughout the world”, Berisha declared during a meeting in Durres.

This declaration of the Prime Minister, although he didn’t give any detail about how the visa lifting would be achieved, has already revived the dreams of many Albanians.

This surprise promise of the Prime Minister found most of the Albanians unprepared. But who really decides on this case is the United States government, and not the Albanian one.

Top Channel sent an information request to the United States Embassy in Tirana, and asked them if there us any plan to lift the visa regime with Albania. The embassy replied:

“The Visa Waiver Program is sanctioned by law and there are a number of statutory requests that should be fulfilled before a country can be taken in consideration for VWP membership. The current law requires that only the countries with a visa refusal level of 3% and under can travel without visa in the United States. Albania’s level for 2012 was 40.5%”.

The declaration of the United States Embassy does not leave to much space for dreams. It remains to be seen if Mr. Berisha will keep promising this, which in the current conditions seems almost impossible.

SP: The US “placed visa” for Berisha . Milo: Electoral lie

The opposition sees no real chances in Berisha’s promise, and commented it more in the political view.

“Berisha cannot promise anything to the Albanians, when the United States have “placed a visa” on him”, declared Ditmir Bushati.

Paskal Milo, head of the Social Democracy Party and former Foreign Minister declared that Berisha’s is just an electoral promise.

In fact, with a simple search on the internet, the visa free regime is applied only with 37 states in the world, and countries like Poland, Romania, Cyprus and Bulgaria, although they are European Union members, cannot enter the United States without visa.