On Friday 6 December, the European Commission adopted its seventh report under the mechanism for suspending the visa waiver arrangements with its partners in the Western Balkans and Eastern Partnership, the Eastern Caribbean and Latin America, it said in a press release on Monday 9 December.
Visa waiver schemes allow nationals of benefiting countries to travel to the EU without a visa for a period of 3 months, and this annual report enables the Commission to assess the potential risks linked to irregular migration and security.
For each country, the Commission takes stock of the extent to which the visa-free regimes of these countries are aligned with those of the EU; it also monitors the rates of unfounded asylum applications lodged in the EU by nationals of these countries benefiting from visa liberalisation with the EU, and the rates of return of nationals in an irregular situation.
“For the EU’s neighbourhood, the follow-up to the visa liberalisation process continues to be a powerful tool to support reforms and boost cooperation with the EU on migration, border management and security. The Commission considers that Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia have taken action to address several recommendations made in the sixth report under the Visa Suspension Mechanism. However, they still need to take further action, specifically to align their visa policies with the visa policy of the EU”, writes the Commission.
In April 2023, Albania removed Russia, India and Egypt from its list of seasonal visa exemptions. In May 2024, Albania also partially suspended its visa exemption with Belarus for holders of diplomatic and service passports.
However, this visa-free regime is maintained for all Belarusians holding an ordinary passport.
“The lack of alignment of Albanian visa policy with the EU visa policy contributes to an increased risk of irregular migration to the EU via the Western Balkans route”, says the Commission, which expects further progress.
While Albania has often been singled out for criticism in this respect, the number of applications for international protection lodged in the Member States by Albanian nationals fell by 30% between 2022 and 2023, with 9,100 applications lodged in 2023 compared with 13,020 in 2022.
Serbia, for its part, benefits from a visa-free regime with 16 countries on the EU list of countries subject to visas: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, China, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Suriname and Turkey.
In November 2023, Serbia adopted a “plan for the harmonisation of the visa regime with EU visa policy”, specifying that alignment with regard to countries subject to visa requirements in the EU will take place 1 year or 6 months before Serbia’s accession to the EU.
“Nevertheless, as the lack of visa policy alignment contributes to an increased risk of irregular migration to the EU on the Western Balkans route, the Commission expects faster progress from Serbia on visa policy alignment”.
With regard to Georgia, given recent developments in the situation in the country, the Commission writes that discussions are underway on the possible activation of the mechanism for suspending the visa requirement for certain categories of people.
To avoid such an activation, the country must urgently take new measures to follow up on the Commission’s recommendations, particularly in the area of fundamental rights protection.
Georgia currently benefits from a visa-free regime with 25 countries on the EU list of countries subject to visa requirements. “Georgia made no progress towards further visa policy alignment; on the contrary, with the signature of the visa waiver agreement with China in April 2024 the divergence with the EU visa policy increased”.
Georgia argues that since it has no direct land border with the EU, the lack of alignment of its visa policy does not pose a risk to the EU in terms of irregular migration or security. “However, the Commission recalls that visa policy alignment is a key objective for all countries in the EU’s neighbourhood and with EU membership goals. It therefore expects Georgia to make progress in this area”.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/epu (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)