Brussels, 26/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - On 26 November, the European Commission indicated in a new publication that improvements still need to be made to areas of visa reciprocity, as well as with third countries granting European nationals visa waivers. The publication again highlighted the example of the US, which still compels certain EU nationals such as Bulgarians, Cypriots, Romanians and the Polish to obtain a visa when travelling to US territory.
In its seventh report since the setting up of the reciprocity mechanism, the Commission scrutinises breaches of the principle of visa reciprocity in third countries but also underlines a number of accomplishments that have been made, “visa-free travel for EU citizens has been achieved towards more countries in the past year, for example with Brazil”.
In the context of the progress made, citizens of all member states are now allowed to travel visa-free to Brazil, thanks to the entry into force of the EU-Brazil short stay visa waiver agreement for ordinary passport holders on 1 October 2012. A Commission press release indicates that the Japanese authorities have decided to extend the temporary visa waiver granted for Romanian citizens until 31 December 2012 and, “full visa reciprocity was achieved with Brunei for all EU Member States, as well as for Iceland, Norway and Switzerland”.
With regard to the remaining black spots, the Commission mentions Canada as well as the US, and the fact that Canada also imposes a visa requirement for the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania. Canada previously granted a visa waiver to Czech citizens but by reintroducing the visa requirement for the country's citizens, it is attempting to reduce the number of unfounded asylum applications.
The Reciprocity Mechanism was introduced in 2005 as part of Regulation 539/2001, which drew up a list of third countries exempt from visa requirements when entering the EU, as well as countries that still required visas. The Commission proposed amending this regulation in May 2011 to allow member states to reintroduce visas in the event of bogus applications being made in certain third countries.
The Commission explained that overall, the current reciprocity mechanism had proved efficient and, “the number of these non-reciprocity cases has been reduced significantly since the introduction of the mechanism in 2005, when nearly one hundred cases with 18 countries were reported”.
Under the current system, if a country that is visa free introduces a visa requirement for one or more EU member states, the member state(s) concerned must notify the Commission, which takes steps with the authorities of the third country to restore visa-free travel and reports to the European Parliament and the Council. The Commission can also propose to the Council retaliatory measures vis-à-vis the third country in question. In a bid to provide a more efficient proactive response, the Commission proposed revising the mechanism because retaliatory measures were proving difficult to apply. This revision proposes that the Commission be given greater “diplomatic” leeway with regard to how it convinces third countries to lift their restrictions. (SP/transl.fl)