Situation in BiH is getting worse, citizens are not satisfied with life and don’t believe to anyone; this was shown by results of research of Gallup Balkan Monitor presented in Sarajevo at the round table “Visa liberalization for BiH: Chance that should not be missed”.

The round table was organized by ACIPS and European Fund for Balkan in order to present Gallup research for 2009 and to exchange opinions of participants on liberalization of visa regime and other topics related to accession of BiH to EU.

According to these results, presented by Gallup researcher Andrzej Pyrka, expectations of BiH citizens from EU are, regardless everything, still positive, sine compared to the last year that number increased from 48 to 66%. The biggest support to accession to EU is given by Bosniaks (77%), then Croats (73%) and then Serbs (48%).

However, only 13% of BiH citizens believe that the country is going in the good direction and 77% that it is going in bad direction. Citizens of Croatia are the only who are more pessimistic than BiH citizens in the region since 84% of them believe that the country is going in bad direction.

76% of BiH Croats have Croatian passports and 17% of BiH Serbs have passports of Serbia which tells a lot about those who are most hurt with such EU visa policy. And Pyrka said that this data is already out of date.

Discussion on whether the EU visa policy is, with all the mistakes that BiH authorities made, partially motivated with Islamophobia took place at the round table. The Gallup research shows that 35% of BiH citizens, mostly Bosniaks agree with the assessment that such visa policy can encourage disintegration of the country.

The research also shows that fear from mass leave from the country after liberalization of visa regime is groundless since 78% of citizens would stay in the country after liberalization and accession to EU.