On Monday 23 March the European Commission published a new report on visa-free reciprocity.
In a global context disrupted by the COVID-19, which resulted in many countries around the world temporarily banning short-term travel to their territory (as did the United States towards the whole EU, but also almost all Schengen countries, which banned leisure travel to their territory for 30 days), the Commission took stock of the latest restrictions that the United States continued to apply against certain European countries before the crisis.
The Commission thus reports on progress for Poland, whose citizens have been visa-free for travel to the United States since November 2019. The country had in fact managed to avoid exceeding the 3% threshold for refusing visa applications against its nationals.
This is a benchmark for the United States, as this refusal rate gives an idea of the number of unfounded tourist visa applications that are no longer motivated by an immigration objective in the country.
However, nationals of Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania or Cyprus are still penalised compared to those of the other 23 member countries. Despite progress, these four countries still have refusal rates above 3%, notes the Commission (9.75% for Bulgaria, 4.02% for Croatia or 9.11% for Romania).
US citizens are exempt from visa requirements to come to these four countries, as in the rest of the EU.
In the report, the Commission promises to step up efforts to lift visa requirements for these four Member States as soon as circumstances permit and meetings are possible. At this stage, US and EU officials are due to meet again in May for another Justice and Home Affairs ministerial meeting.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/2WNP2mv (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)