In a written response to the MEPs published on 2 May, the European Commission surprised nobody when it confirmed that it had no plans to bring back visa requirements for American citizens wishing to travel to the EU, even though the US is not applying visa reciprocity and continues to penalise Bulgarians, Croatians, Cypriots, Poles and Romanians.
In a resolution adopted on 2 March (see EUROPE 11737), the European Parliament gave the Commission two months to take position on its calls to suspend visa exemptions for third-country nationals of states not granting reciprocal visa exemptions to citizens of all EU member states.
The Commission explained that it took the view that the significant progress over the last year and the positive impetus of the work currently underway meant that any temporary suspension of visa exemptions for Canadian and US nationals would be counter-productive at the moment and not serve the objective of visa-free travel for all EU citizens. It is worth noting that it managed to resolve the issue with Canada when the CETA was signed.
The Commission argues that its diplomatic approach has already started to pay off: Canada lifted visa requirements for certain categories of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens on 1 May 2017 and will bring in total reciprocity from 1 December 2017.
Furthermore, contact has been resumed with the new American administration, the Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, told a press conference on Tuesday 2 May, pledging to press ahead with the work with the US to reach a solution. For instance, at the forthcoming EU/US ministerial meeting to be held in June. The Commission in particular wishes to discuss the criteria on the basis of which the US is denying the visa-regime to nationals of these countries. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)