On Thursday, 28 September, the European Commission announced in a press release that, on Wednesday, 27 September, it had proposed putting an end to the increased cost of visas for Gambian nationals after the Gambia remedied shortcomings in its cooperation on the readmission of irregular migrants.
However, it adopted stricter rules for granting visas for several categories of Ethiopian nationals due, in this case, to a lack of cooperation.
“Considering the progress made since 2022 on readmission cooperation by the Gambia, the Commission has now proposed to revoke the increased visa fee for nationals of the Gambia. The first set of measures, previously adopted in 2021, remains in place for the Gambia”, the European Commission wrote in a press release.
In mid-2022, Member States had increased the price of short-stay visas to €120, compared to €80 under normal circumstances (see EUROPE 13080/31). The 2021 measures had been taken in October (see EUROPE 12807/32) and, among other things, suspended the exemption from providing all the documentary evidence required to apply for a visa.
As far as Ethiopia is concerned, the EU Council’s implementing decision “should temporarily suspend the application of certain provisions of the Visa Code in respect of Ethiopian nationals. The suspension, however, should not apply to Ethiopian family members of [...] EU citizens”.
Ethiopia’s failure to sufficiently cooperate on readmission justifies the temporary suspension of the possibility of waiving the requirements with regard to documentary evidence to be submitted by visa applicants and the suspension of the general 15-calendar-day period for processing visa applications—the standard period once again becoming 45 days.
The measure also concerns the suspension of the issuing of multiple-entry visas and the suspension of the optional visa-fee waiver for holders of diplomatic passports.
Links to the two decisions: https://aeur.eu/f/8s0 and https://aeur.eu/f/8sr (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)