The holders of Georgian and Kosovan passports should soon be able to travel in the Schengen Area of free movement without visas for visits of up to three months, the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee (LIBE) stated in the evening of Monday 5 September.
The MEPs put this into perspective for the visa-free travel scheme of Pristina by voting both to allow the scheme but also in favour of the opening of talks with the Council of the EU. They want to wait for Kosovo to meet the final criterion (of a total of 95) by ratifying the border agreement with Montenegro that is still in progress.
The Parliament’s committee wants also to wait for the Council to grant its agreement in principle. A narrow majority of MEPs endorsed the visa exemption for Kosovo (25 to 24 with 2 abstentions) but a confortable one endorsed the visa exemption for Georgia (44 to 5). They went on to endorse the opening of negotiations with the Council on the proposal concerning Georgia (44 to 5 and 1 abstention), with a view to reaching agreement in first reading, but for the proposal on Kosovo, they rejected the idea of beginning talks with the Council (24 to 25).
Kosovo’s European integration minister Bekim Çollaku nevertheless tweeted a welcome of the LIBE committee’s vote, thanking Tanja Fajon (S&D, Slovenia), rapporteur on the matter.
For Ukraine, which is also due to benefit from visa-free travel, the civil liberties committee is expected to vote on the question by the end of September or early October.
Ball now in Council’s court
Before the final go-ahead is given to visa-free travel, the member states want the provisional suspension mechanism for visa-free travel to be finalised, which would be used in the event of abuse, such as a sudden rise in the numbers of asylum-seekers. The mechanism still needs to be agreed between the European Parliament (see EUROPE 11589) and the Council (see EUROPE 11555).
A Parliament source says the Parliament is playing for time on this issue for institutional reasons relating to its role in implementing the suspension mechanism, but once the interinstitutional talks are completed on this mechanism, things should move fast, as ministers’ priority is to ensure that the mechanism comes into force at exactly the same time as the visa-free travel.
A decision by national experts on the Visa Working Group endorsed by member states’ sherpas on COREPER would suffice to give the green light without having to wait for a formal endorsement by EU interior ministers, planned in theory for early October. There remains the EU’s promise of visa-free travel to Turkey in response to other political issues, which the EU and the Turkish authorities pledged over the past few days to introduce soon. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)