This paper will examine the implications of the visa liberalisation dialogues which took place between the European Commission and national governments of the Western Balkans between 2008 and 2010 for the citizenship regimes of these countries. For the purposes of the analysis, the visa liberalisation process is approached as a tool of Europeanisation of the area of justice, freedom and security and as an exercise of EU conditionality. Looking both at the formal benchmarking process and through interviews with stakeholders at the national level, the paper traces how the visa liberalisation process affected the status and rights dimension of citizenship in the region. The paper will examine the practices of citizenship in relation to the freedom of movement and anti-discrimination policies as part of the EU acquis and the process of the rule transfer and implementation to the (potential) candidate countries in the Western Balkans. The analysis reflects on the negotiations for visa liberalisation as well as the mechanisms and practices established for post-visa liberalisation monitoring. Studying the formal and informal EU pressure and national responses before and after the visa liberalisation, this paper will demonstrate the transformative power of Europeanization, simultaneously with its potentially adverse influences specifically on the freedom of movement and anti-discrimination policies.
