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When it comes to relations between Ukraine and the European Union, one big issue in Kiev is the on-going controversy over EU travel visas.

Everyday Ukrainians line up outside the likes of the Polish and Czech embassies, hoping to get their hands on a bit of paper that gives them free movement in the Schengen zone. But many are hoping that one day all of that will change.

As part of an action plan with the European Union, Kiev is attempting to meet strict conditions for the lifting of EU visa requirements.

Outside the Czech embassy a man planning a third trip to Prague to visit family explained how proving the purpose of his visit was difficult the last time he applied.

“It is as if they thought I was going to stay there and work illegally,” he said.

Europe Without Barriers, an umbrella group of numerous NGOs, is helping to fight for an EU no-visa regime. It admits the government has work to do to improve border security and migration controls. However, it says theNGOs are also having to help tackle what it describes as stereotypical attitudes among some EU members.

“It is known that Ukraine has its supporters of visa liberalisation, but at the same time there are those who are afraid of it and those who are critical of it,” explained Iryna Sushko from Europe Without Barriers.

But before visas can be lifted the EU says real concerns about illegal migration, trafficking and false documents must be addressed.

It says Ukraine’s vast borders, especially to the east, are permeable, and trafficking and illegal migration from other countries pass through.

But is Brussels optimistic its conditions can be met?

“This is quite a comprehensive and complex situation. Ukraine has a lot to do in terms of implementing these requirements of the action plan. And therefore I think we should have this in mind. There have been some positive steps already taken,” said José Manuel Pinto Teixeira, EU Ambassador to Ukraine.

Whether those steps are enough remains to be seen though; a progress report from Brussels is due in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, local NGOs say they are monitoring attitudes and practices at EU embassies, saying the number of long-term and multi-entry visas are too low.

Seamus Kearney, reporting from Kiev for euronews says: “Many travellers also complain that success in obtaining an EU visa largely depends on each individual embassy – and they say the approach is far from uniform.”

However, the European Union says it has attempted to make the whole process more transparent, simpler and cheaper for Ukrainians. It also says the rate of visa refusals at EU embassies is now down to about four percent.

Among those dreaming of an end to the long wait for visas are foreign companies operating in Ukraine. Two employees from the logistics company GEFCO outlined the difficulties.

“Very often a truck that carries goods can remain idle for up to three weeks while the transport company waits to get a visa for its driver,” explained Igor Loskutov, the company’s Road Transport Coordinator.

Aleksandr Levchenko, Purchase and Quality Manager at GEFCO said: “Business is very dynamic and it rapidly changes, and the need to travel sometimes happens at the last minute.”

It is a message Ukrainian politicians are only too aware of, as they continue to try to boost border security with practical and financial help from Brussels.

Source: Euronews

European Union Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has defended visa free travel and immigration movements as beneficial to the bloc.

The Polish PAP agency quotes Malmstroem saying Monday that the union must receive immigrants if it wants to maintain its high living standards and compete in the world.

She told a meeting of EU asylum experts that free movement of people and goods is the basis for the EU and if the process is well managed, migration brings benefits.

Her comments follows calls by some member states for reintroduction of border controls within the visa free Schengen zone in the face of an immigration wave from North Africa. Last week Denmark boosted its border controls.

Source: Business Week

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Romania and Bulgaria need to do more to overcome crime and corruption before joining the Schengen zone, which allows passport-free travel, the European Union Justice and Home Affairs Ministers Council decided today.

The council will reconsider the two Black Sea countries’ bids in September, after the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, releases its next report on efforts to fight graft and organized crime, Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said. The decision came a day after the European Parliament recommended the two countries’ applications.

“I hope the commission’s report will contribute to a positive decision in September,” Tsvetanov told reporters today in Luxembourg. “We have covered all the Schengen membership criteria.”

Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU in 2007, aspire to join eight other former communist countries that are already Schengen members. Their bids coincide with discussions in France and Denmark to reintroduce passport checks at their borders on concern about an influx of North African migrants through Italy.

Countries hoping to join in the Schengen system, named for the Luxembourg village where the treaty allowing border-free travel was signed in 1985, need the unanimous endorsement of existing members, based on an assessment by the commission.

The European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, voted 487 to 77 in favor of the Bulgarian and Romanian applications before passing the recommendation on to the ministerial council. The assembly urged Bulgaria “to take additional measures,” including a special action plan with Greece and Turkey, to cope with a possible surge in migration pressure.

“Illegal migration makes Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece one of the EU’s most sensitive external border areas,” the assembly said yesterday.

The two former Soviet-bloc countries spent 1.16 billion euros ($1.69 billion) to beef up their border police and equip them with patrol boats, helicopters, scanners and night-vision cameras to ensure the security of borders with Turkey, Serbia, Moldova and Ukraine and a stretch of the Black Sea coast.

Source: Bloomberg

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France and Italy have called for the European Union’s Schengen agreement on visa-free travel to be reformed after a dispute between the two countries over immigration from north Africa.

President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi held talks in Rome yesterday to defuse tensions over Italy’s decision to grant temporary residence permits to 20,000 Tunisian migrants who have arrived in Italy since the uprising in the country in January.

French authorities provoked Italy’s ire last week by blocking a train carrying about 60 Tunisians from crossing the Italy-France border, saying only those who proved they could support themselves financially would be granted entry.

“We want Schengen to survive, but to survive Schengen must be reformed,” Mr Sarkozy said yesterday. “We believe in free circulation but we believe in a state of law and a certain number of rules.”

The Schengen agreement allows for visa-free travel between 25 continental European states, including Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, although national authorities retain some discretion to deny entry to non-EU citizens.

Mr Berlusconi said neither country wished to abandon the treaty but that “in exceptional circumstances, we believe there must be changes”. Relations between France and Italy, already strained by divisions over the intervention in Libya, have been damaged by the stand-off over north African immigration. Although the European Commission said France did not breach Schengen rules by temporarily closing the border near the southeastern town of Menton, Italy lodged a formal complaint over the decision.

The dispute is set against a fraught political background in France, where the rise of the far-right Front National has made immigration a major battleground.

Mr Berlusconi has also come under domestic pressure on immigration from his coalition allies in the Northern League, who failed in their initial bid to deport Tunisian migrants who arrived by boat at the island of Lampedusa. Rome maintains it has not received enough support from European neighbours in coping with the flow of migrants from north Africa.

Officials in Paris and Rome have been working on proposals to widen a state’s right to temporarily suspend its Schengen commitments, although the Élysée Palace at the weekend backtracked on its use of the term “suspension”. “France does not want to suspend Schengen,” Mr Sarkozy’s adviser, Henri Guaino, said on Sunday, but rather to widen the clauses allowing for border controls to be reimposed “in particular circumstances”.

Mr Berlusconi said the two leaders had jointly written to European Commission president José Manuel Barroso asking him to look into possible reforms of the Schengen deal. They had also urged for “greater collaboration” between EU states on migration flows. “Southern European states should not be left alone to deal with mass immigration,” Mr Berlusconi added.

The two leaders agreed to ask the Tunisian government to co-operate more closely with them in dissuading migrants from travelling to Europe.

Source: Irish Times

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Russia’s dream of visa-free travel to the EU has gone on for so long that the negotiation process can often appear almost comatose.

But after a year of intense lobbying, President Dmitry Medvedev is claiming success following the creation of a list of joint steps to be taken by Russian and Euro diplomats.

That checklist, once completed, is expected to pave the way to a formal waiver of visas between Russia and all EU member states – ultimately including those such as the UK which have opted out of the Schengen agreement, Kommersant reported.

Groundbreaking

Vladimir Voronkov, head of the foreign ministry’s department of European Cooperation, warned that the list still needed fine-tuning to ensure it was acceptable to all sides.

But he told the business daily that it was a “groundbreaking document”.

“Together we will define the parameters on both sides,” he said. “Both Russia and the EU will act as completely equal partners in the development of these steps and a future agreement on a visa-free regime.

“This is a new practice in the EU, and it will help Russia develop joint steps towards visa-free travel with all EU countries.”

Previously when countries have sought to introduce visa relaxations with Brussels, Europe has adopted a guiding role.

But Moscow, uniquely, will not be receiving formal advice from Europe about how to meet the required standards to waive visa requirements.

Practical steps

The first signs of change will be seen this autumn in St. Petersburg when Russia begins issuing biometric passports matching the latest international standards. Visa-free travel will only be available to people with biometric passports.

But of greater relevance to expats in Russia will be the fourth and final block of amendments, which outlines plans to make it easier for everyone to get the documents needed to travel to and stay in Russia or Europe.

Stefano Manservizi, the European Commission’s director of Internal Affairs, hinted that this might see Moscow finally ease up on domestic registration procedures in the face of queries from Europe.

Other areas for cooperation are set to include ways of dealing with illegal migration and cross-border smuggling.

Restrictions

As well as limiting the deal to biometric passports only, the visa waiver will only apply to short visits: long-term working visas on both sides will remain in place, but visa-free travel for up to 180 days in total each year would be possible.

And initially the visa-free regime will only cover the Schengen zone, although this may be revised.

“The idea is to create a visa-free regime between Russia and EU countries outside the Schengen area,” Manservizi added. “But since the latter includes countries which are not members of the EU, those countries (Switzerland, Iceland, Norway – ed.) will have to conclude individual agreements with Russia.”

Timetable

The final text of the joint steps document is expected to be approved in St. Petersburg on May 19 at a meeting of the Permanent Council of the EU-Russia partnership.

On June 9-10 in Nizhny Novgorod it is hoped that both sides will formally adopt the text at a summit meeting.

Source: Moscow News

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Turkey is one of the EU’s most important gatekeepers to illegal migration. But a row over visas is threatening the adoption of an agreement that Brussels sees as key to controlling the growing problem of illegal migration through Turkey.

Frontex Police officers stay near the border with Turkey as they are deployed to help Greek border police control crossing of illegal immigrants to Greece and Europe near Nea Vyssa, northeastern Greece

According to the EU as many as 80,000 migrants are believed to have entered Greece from Turkey illegally. And that is why Brussels is pressing Ankara to agree to accept back people who’ve entered the EU illegally.

But Ankara says it will only agree to the so-called re-admission agreement if the EU eases visa requirements on its citizens.

“They might be two different issues, but for us they are connected,” said Selim Yenel, deputy undersecretary for Bilateral Affairs and Public Diplomacy of the Turkish foreign ministry.  “Unfortunately the EU must come to their senses. They have not done so nothing is happening on the visa question and they want us to sign the re-admission agreement. Well sorry that is not going to happen.”

Early Thursday, the Turkish government renewed its call for the European Union to remove visa requirements.

At a meeting in Ankara with the EU’s new commissioner for enlargement, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu pressed the issue pointing out that the EU had waived visa requirements for three non-members – Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro – in December.

More than 45,000 migrants entered Greece illegally from Turkey last year, putting available facilities under severe strain, according to the Greek police. Greece also faces the possibility of being hit by a wave of migrants from Libya and other countries in the region. One Greek minister warned that the number could be as many as 300,000.

But diplomatic correspondent Semih Idiz says unless the EU eases its visas controls Ankara is in no mood to compromise.

“Turks are confronted with visas from Europe even though they are many businessmen who do business with Europe. There are thousands of students who go to Europe and Turkey is being treated as a third world country which has nothing but potential illegal immigrants,” Idiz said. “For the government , the state and the population this is a demeaning situation.”

But joint head of the European Green Party, Daniel Cohn Bendit, says Ankara has to realize what its asking for.

“Opening a free travel is an immense opening. Turkey is a big country,” he said. “This is a debate I have had for 10 years with the Turks.”

Turkey has been a candidate to join the 27-nation union since 1999 and accession talks began in earnest in 2005. But, observers warn that Turkey’s tough stance on the re-admission agreement will do little to enhance Turkey’s reputation in Brussels.  The Turkish government insists protecting EU borders from illegal migration is just one of many reasons it has much to lose if  its EU bid fails.  As a senior Turkish foreign ministry official put it, Brussels has to understand it can’t have its cake and eat it, too.

Source: VOA

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Italy and Sweden expressed support on Turkish nationals’ visa-free travel to European states, TRT English reported.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini aid they will do everything to change this unacceptable attitude, while his Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt said if Europe shuts its doors to new members, it will be preventing many possibilities in the future.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said Turkey will continue to be persistent on visa exemption for Turkish citizens.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu held separate meetings with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bild and Italian Foreign minister Franco Frattini in İstanbul to discuss the situation in Libya and Turkey-European Union relations.

The three ministers then met at the lunch, after which they held a news conference. Visa-exemption for Turkish nationals was taken up in detail.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said “We will continue our persistence on the issue. Principally, Turkey doesn’t expect an attitude different from the one shown to any other country. We ask for the same standards which were applied to other countries. We expect this understanding from the European Union as a whole. As we hope, with the help of our friends in the Union, there won’t be any more obstructions in Turkey-EU relations.”

Guest Ministers also expressed uneasiness over the same issue.

Italia’s top diplomat Franco Frattini said “I am disappointed over the double standard applied by European authorities. We see that Europe begins to act unwillingly when it is Turkey’s tun on the cisa exemption. We will make our best to prevent this unacceptable attitude.”

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said Europe will be closing its doors to future possibilities if it closes its doors to new members.

On creating a no-fly zone over Libya, the ministers agreed that Libyan people should be listened to first and imposing solutions should be avoided.

Source: Trend

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Visa sanctions, imposed on a number of Belarusian officials by the European Union in February, were supported by another nine European countries outside the EU. This was stated by the press service of the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Catherine Ashton on March 3.

The countries, decided to ban entry for representatives of the Belarusian authorities, are as follows – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro.

Catherine Ashton on behalf of the EU welcomed the decision of these countries’ authorities.

As Telegraf previously reported, EU visa sanctions in respect of certain officials of Belarus have bacome valid since February 2. The European Community has restricted some Belarusian authorities, involved in “political repression” after the announcement of presidential election results, to enter the EU. The list of banned includes 158 people. Meanwhile, representatives of the Belarusian opposition and civil activists have come out with a proposal to expand the list.

At the same time the EU starts talks on visa facilitation and readmission for the citizens of Belarus. The European Commission was mandated to negotiate with the official Minsk. A simplified visa regime is planned not to affect the holders of diplomatic and service passports as well as nationals, the EU imposed sanctions on in January 2011.

Source: Telegraf

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Visa-free travel between Russia and the EU will top the agenda of  Thursday’s meeting  in Brussels between members of the Russian government and representatives of the  European Commission.

Speaking in Kaliningrad on Wednesday PM Vladimir Putin said much attention would be paid to lifting visa restrictions between Russia’s westernmost exclave and the neighboring EU countries.

Poland has already given a nod to the idea and Russia is currently discussing the matter with other European nations.

Source: The Voice of Russia

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France has set up two visa sections at its consulates in Bangalore and Kolkata from where one can also get Schengen visa that enables travel to certain European countries.

While the visa office in Bangalore became operational yesterday, the one in Kolkata will start issuing visas and business permits from the end of this week.

“The move is to provide better visa services to the people of the country. The new centers will reduce the burden of the people to travel to far away places to get their visa,” French Embassy officials said here today.

Schengen visa enables one to travel to certain European countries even if he has secured the visa from one particular country.

This will enable travelers from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to get the visas from the Bangalore office. Till now, they had to go to Mumbai to get one.

Officials of the ‘Invest in France Agency’ said the French government had recently decided to 10-year residency permit for exceptional economic contributions to the country.

Source: Deccan Herald

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