Visa-Free Travel: Is It Working as an EU Foreign Policy Tool?

The issue of visa-free travel has become a highly-debated issue within EU foreign policy. As the momentum for enlargement diminshes, the EU has started offering visa liberalisation as an incentive to influence reforms in countries across the EU’s neighbourhood. There appears to be significant potential in this approach: polls show that visa liberalisation is one of the tangible benefits non-EU citizens aspire to reap from the Union. The EU has recently offered a raft of agreements on visa liberalisation. It has attached conditionality to these agreements by requiring far-reaching reforms in the justice and home affairs area of signatory countries. However, are these agreements working as a influential foreign policy and integration tools?