By Marko Čadež
As of 1 March this year, citizens of Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia will FINALLY be able to live and work in any of the three countries as in their own. In boring bureaucratic words “The Agreement on the Conditions for Free Access to the Labor Market in the Western Balkans ensures every citizen of the three Open Balkan countries to have the same access to the labor market in any of the countries as a local citizen and the right to move, stay and work freely in the territory of the signatory parties, i.e. within the framework of all the Open Balkan countries”.
1 March is a day of revolution (evolution) in these territories of ours where the first rule of public administrations is “IT IS IMPOSSIBLE”. Precisely it has been three years and three months now when the leaders of the Open Balkan countries decided and signed a visionary decision on establishing a free access to the Western Balkan labor market. It took three years and three months for the leaders and a few diligent people from the governments to convince their “IT IS IMPOSSIBLE” colleagues with logical arguments.
That’s why I will not write that the biggest risk for all OB economies is the lack of adequate workforce and demographic trends. Nor will I write that young people will be in a position to earn money for their studies over the summer by working in one of the Open Balkan countries without administrative obstacles. I don’t want to write for the umpteenth time how much this step will positively affect the growth of the sectors of construction, tourism and hospitality, IT, power and machinery industry, or about the fact that this is a positive signal to foreign companies intending to invest here, thus creating new jobs. All of the above said is less important than the fact that until just three years ago, we were not interested in who in Albania or North Macedonia was doing the same job as us, trying to make the life of its citizens better and of higher quality. Until just three years ago, we believed that if we want it to be better for us, it must be worse for them. We have been knowing each other for three years, and have realized that we share the same issues. That our children are happy or sad in the same way. We have learned that it takes just a WhatsApp or Viber message, or “how are you today and what’s up” to solve a problem.
And, there it is, NAPOKON MOŽEMO – MË NË FUND MUNDET – КОНЕЧНО МОЖЕМЕ
Marko Čadež is President of Chamber of Commerce and Industry Serbia.
This article first appeared on Kurir Biznis, Serbia.
