MEPs adopted on Thursday 22 October a resolution tabled by Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D, Spain) on visa reciprocity with the United States by 376 votes to 269 with 43 abstentions.
The resolution, which was adopted by European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties in July (see EUROPE 12528/17), calls on the Commission to take the measures provided for in European law to respond to the exclusion of four member countries from the US visa-free programme.
The country continues (in normal times, as non-essential travel is currently banned between the two continents) to require visas for Cypriot, Bulgarian, Romanian and Croatian citizens wishing to travel there, whereas this requirement is not imposed on other EU citizens.
The Commission is therefore again invited, as in 2017, to present a legal act suspending the visa waiver for US citizens for twelve months, as established in the so-called reciprocity mechanism.
During a debate on the subject on Monday evening, Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson had already indicated that the Commission, under the reciprocity regulation, could assess the economic impact of such a measure and choose to waive the suspension of the visa-free programme enjoyed by the United States.
She believes that the Commission is achieving “progress with the United States” and that “diplomatic cooperation” will help resolve these problems. Polish citizens were also exempted from the visa-free programme until last year. The Commissioner therefore wants to continue to build on these diplomatic talks.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/3kgOQ7Y (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)