Getting hold of visas is oftimes a tiresome and frustrating process of navigation through the loops of bureaucracy. The ECF worked with Ljubljana-based cultural organisation Bunker to organise two large meetings that were to happen simulatneously in Ljubljana. The meetings — the fifth getgether and the Balkan-Mediterranean Reflection Group — involved many invitees from across Europe and the mediterranean regions of the Middle East and North Africa. But not only participants from the Mediterranean faced problems in obtaining their visa to Slovenia (which is partly due to the fact that Slovenia has only a limited number of Embassies in the region). Even on a regional scale visas are an issue. Since Slovenia is a member of the EU it is now exceedingly difficult for Macedonian, Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian and other neighbouring nonEU countires to enter the Slovenia.

In the months before the meetings, both the ECF and Bunker started the process of contacting and writing letters to embassies to facilitate the visa application process for the participants. The story got complicated and slowly but surely more depressing as the odds of securing visas for all participants start to look rather grim with the idiosyncratic visa application policies for different passport holders. Bunker however continued to perservere and took on the task to negotiate — especially when it came to negotiating with the embassies from the neighbouring Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia to ensure that the visa applications could be finalised in time for the meetings in May.