Project name: Paving the road towards visa-free travel between the Eastern Partnership countries and the EU

Goal and objectives of project
The goal of the project is to promote closer integration and people-to-people exchange and contacts between the Eastern Partnership countries and EU member-states through working to strengthen policies towards securing enhanced co-operation leading to visa liberalisation. Through opening up to each other the Eastern Partnership countries and the EU, democratic values and mutual understanding will foster greater trade, education exchange, and common commitment to solving key strategic questions facing the Eurasia region, including regional conflicts, migration, and energy security.

The project will seek to achieve this goal by:

• fostering national and international engagement in policy debates on reducing barriers to people-to-people exchange between the Eastern Partnership countries and the EU;
• through comparative analysis of the experience of visa liberalisation of other countries, especially in the western Balkans, and policy dialogue among key stakeholders in the EaP countries, drawing up strategies to agree on a country-by-country basis a roadmap to meet the technical criteria for visa liberalisation with the EU;
• through policy dialogue and independent monitoring of progress towards meeting the criteria, shaping governments’ policies, legal framework and institutions to modernise practices in the fields of border security, international co-operation on migration and organised crime, and other areas necessary to foster closer integration with the EU through enhanced co-operation and visa liberalisation.