The Balkan region features a proliferation of barriers to movement of people, goods and ideas, both among the countries that make it up and vis-à-vis the European Union. These stifle development, create frustration, slow regional cooperation and isolate it from the rest of Europe. Moving On: Overcoming Balkan Barriers to a European Future provides new insight into the existence and impact of such borders on a range of political, economic, social, cultural and environmental issues and opportunities. The product of original research within the Balkan region and EU, its ten articles elucidate issues as diverse as criminal justice, environmental threats and sport and culture policy, as well as visa regimes, labour flows and the politics of transport.

Moving On: Overcoming Balkan Barriers to a European Future is the product of ten journalists selected from throughout Southeast Europe to participate in the 2007 programme of the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence. Initiated by the Robert Bosch Stiftung and ERSTE Foundation, in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, this programme responds with financial and professional support to the growing need in the region to foster quality reporting, encourage regional networking among journalists and advance balanced coverage on complex reform issues that are central to the region as well as to the European Union.

Independent journalism plays a key role in establishing, consolidating and sustaining democratic societies. In Southeast Europe balanced coverage of socio-political and economic topics is not only crucial to promoting reforms and enhancing further democratisation, it also prepares the countries of the region for a future in the European Union. The media, however, are still developing their capacity to provide the public with quality analysis of regional and international issues.

It would have been difficult to find a theme more appropriate than European mobility to launch the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence programme.

While 2007 marked the 50th anniversary of the European Union and its extension to Bulgaria and Romania, the countries known as the “Western Balkans” remain relatively isolated from the rest of the continent and from one another by travel restrictions, trade barriers, and mutual prejudices