During a European Parliament transport and tourism committee debate on Wednesday 22 March, the different speakers representing the tourist sector were unanimous in their condemnation of the introduction of a reciprocity principle in response to new US visa measures.
Representatives from the World Travel & Tourism Council, European Travel Commission (ETC) and the European Tourism Association (ETOA) all spoke in opposition to applying the reciprocity principle when a third country decides to impose visa requirements on nationals from one or several member states, as stipulated in the regulation on the visa regulation obligations and exemptions for third countries (Regulation 539/2001).
They would prefer a pragmatic rather than a procedural approach and are demanding that a visa requirement is not made compulsory for US nationals, due to the increasing number of US tourists that come to the Union every year who can now be counted in their millions. Suspending the visa waiver would provoke a substantial loss in income for the tourist sector and a wave of redundancies in Europe, they warned.
This position is similar to that of the European Commission (see EUROPE 11738), which is also emphasising economic cautiousness in this respect and would, oppose the European Parliament in this case. In a resolution, the latter very recently called on the European Commission to move more swiftly in this regard (see EUROPE 11737). The US is continuing to maintain a visa requirement for Bulgarians, Croatians, Cypriots, Poles and Romanians entering US territory.
A similar situation is affecting relations between the Union and Canada. Nonetheless, during Parliament’s concluding ratification of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, made a commitment to lifting visa requirements for Romanian and Bulgarian nationals.
“Visa” code blockage and ETIAS programme costs. Speakers at the debate also expressed annoyance at the blockage of the “visa” code at the Council, which is due to the European Parliament having introduced a humanitarian visa. They also expressed concern about the costs generated by the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)