[Osmf-talk] "Western Balkans"? Re: Fee Waiver Program announcement

[Paul Norman]

On 2018-11-16 1:01 AM, Rory McCann wrote:
>
> Thanks Paul.
>
> One question: The country list on that page, and the linked PayPal
> page[1], refers to "Western Balkans", which isn't a country.
>
> Wikipedia[2] says "Western Balkans is a neologism coined to refer to
> Albania and the territory of the former Yugoslavia less Slovenia". But
> that includes Croatia, which is a member of the European Union! I
> thought we were in a single market! Depending on your political
> orientation, I've traveled (twice) in all, or nearly all, of those
> countries, and 1 or 2 of those countries use the Euro. I don't remember
> having a problem using my credit or debit card.
>
> I'm not really opposed to granting everyone from there free membership
> to the OSMF. Would it not be more respectful to list the country names
> individually rather than lump them into one geographic neolingualism? 

We've taken the list from PayPal, which has in turn taken it from 
sanctions. We'll have to find out what that means exactly. I suspect 
this is one of those cases where someone impacted by the sanctions will 
be very aware of it. If someone has expertise in what countries are 
embargoed from PayPal, please contact the MWG. We had to figure out the 
list from research.

We haven't formally set the priority for the next work, but my view is 
that aside from extending the program for financial need, we'll be 
spending time on adding countries to the list where the transfer costs 
are excessive, and learning more about sanctions and embargos.