June 14, 2012 put an end to Kosovo’s prickly path to receiving the European Union’s visa liberalization road-map, whilst at the same time allowing it to embark on what is expected to be an arduous journey towards visa-free travel in the countries constituting the Schengen area. After five of the Western Balkan states namely Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina witnessed the visa requirements for their citizens abolished in 2009 and 2010, Kosovars remain the last in the region to be subject to the lengthy and costly procedures each and every time they wish to enter one of the Schengen states. With around one-third of its population outside of its borders concentrated primarily on the EU’s territory the ability to move easily has represented a high priority issue for the Kosovo’s executive branch. What is more, the restrictions on travel in Europe—a region geographically and culturally closest to Kosovo’s people have led to the emergence of frustration and feelings of being left out and even forgotten by the EU. The isolation, termed by some a ‘visa ghetto’, has also added to the number of factors precluding a sound economic development of the country. The presentation and handing over of the road-map by the European Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom to Kosovar representatives in June 2012 thus marked an important turning point. Moreover, it helped transform an elusive vision into an attainable objective with more concrete contours in the form of benchmarks, whose fulfillment conditions granting of the visa-free regime to the population of the ‘newborn’. Whilst the representatives of Kosovo institutions expressed Kosovo’s gratitude and determination to be a ‘serious and good partner in the EU integration process’ and to ‘fulfill all [our] obligations’,Cecilia Malmstrom reiterated that, ‘whether and how soon visa-free travel becomes a reality depends on the government’s commitment to implementing [these] difficult reforms on the ground’.