Despite another meeting for talks held on Tuesday 29 November, negotiators from the European Parliament, Council of the EU and the European Commission have still not managed to reach an agreement on the project for creating a European visa suspension mechanism.
One European source explained that due to this persisting blockage, the Permanent Representatives Committee (COREPER) will have to deal with this dossier again next week. COREPER will attempt to define new ways forward in the negotiations, in an effort to reach a compromise with the EP on this mechanism. This mechanism is supposed to allow the EU to temporarily activate visa obligations for the third country nationals in the event of peaks of illegal immigration, bogus asylum requestsor lack of cooperation on “readmissions”.
The dossier is still stalling on the issue of what modalities should be used for activating the suspension clause, particularly with regard to the first phase for implementing suspension under the terms of an implementing act. Questions particularly focused on the duration of this first phase and what individuals would be affected: would it involve the whole population or just certain groups of it?
On Thursday 24 November during the EU/Ukraine Summit, the respective Presidents of the Council and the Commission, Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, provided assurances that a solution would be found by the end of year and that they were significantly stepping up contacts to put this commitment into practice.
This agreement on the suspension mechanism depends on granting visa waiver systems for Ukrainian, Georgian, Kosovan and possibly Turkish citizens. The Council has spoken, in principle, in favour of liberalising these visa systems for Georgia and Ukraine. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)