Brussels, le 22/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - Several MEPs from the EPP are calling on the US Congress to approve the changes to the “Visa Waiver” programme (VWP) proposed by two US politicians which will remove the need for Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian and Cypriot citizens to have visas when travelling to the US.
In a letter sent on Monday 20 February, Polish MEPs Jacek Saryusz-Wolski and Rafal Trzaskowski, supported by Elmar Brok from Germany and Mario Mauro from Italy, called on the US to recognise that the EU is a “whole” and that this unity should also apply to visas. Brok said that different treatment between European countries is “unacceptable”.
The MEPs point out that this programme was set up to improve relations between friendly countries and to get rid of the need for consular agents from the US State Department to evaluate innumerable requests from citizens in these countries. Trzaskowski said that this is why it is difficult to understand the different treatment received by Poland and the other countries with which it is the ally.
According to the amendments proposed by US Senator Barbara Mikulski and Congressman Mike Quigley, a new criterion will be introduced into US legislation, so that the VWP can be extended. The number of individual candidates will be taken into account and not the number of requests received. These amendments were also supported by President Barack Obama, which MEPs are pleased about and they hope that members of Congress will be able to provide the necessary impetus that will make the difference. They also point out that the EP has adopted many different resolutions on the reciprocity principle in EU-US relations. (SP/transl.fl).