Brussels, 08/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - European Parliament (EP) President Jerzy Buzek expressed his “full solidarity” in Strasbourg on Monday 7 March with the citizens of the Czech Republic who, since July 2009, have been required to hold a visa to enter Canada, unlike the citizens of other European countries. Canada has no plans at this stage to amend these arrangements. A written declaration on this issue drafted by Zuzana Roithová, Alexander Alvaro, Stavros Lambrinidis, Miroslav Ouzký and Manfred Weber, was launched in November 2010. It has gained the required number of signatures and has thus been adopted as an official position of the European Parliament. It calls on the Commission and Council to put political pressure on Canada to abolish the visa regime and to end “other breaches of visa reciprocity” towards Bulgarian and Romanian citizens. In 2007, Canada put in place a system which allowed Czech citizens to enter Canada without a visa, but reinstated the procedure in July 2009 as a result of the growing number of asylum requests which, the Canadian authorities say, proved suspect. In its written declaration, the EP suggests that, if this infringement of reciprocity is not settled swiftly, “the EU should establish equivalent measures”. The EP also calls on the Commission to establish a new mechanism, rather than a bilateral agreement, “for enforcing full visa reciprocity for all member states … ensuring that if a non-EU country breaches the principle of visa reciprocity … the EU will immediately restore the visa requirement for nationals of that country”. (S.P./transl.rt)