The European Commission launched, on 21 August and until 18 September, a call for evidence to prepare the new EU visa strategy, expected at the end of the year.
The new strategy “will set out how visa policy can further help secure borders, manage migration, and promote better cooperation with non-EU countries”, explains the call for evidence document.
It will focus on three objectives: “a visa policy that contributes to the EU’s economic growth and competitiveness; a visa policy that strengthens EU security; a visa policy that is modern and future-proof”.
With 9.7 million Schengen visas issued in 2024 and more than 1.4 billion people from 61 countries benefiting from visa-free travel, “the EU visa policy plays a crucial role in promoting tourism, trade, economic growth, as well as people-to-people exchanges. Nevertheless, there is potential to use the EU visa policy even more strategically”: for example, to manage security issues, strengthen border protection and ensure effective migration management.
Moreover, “to attract skills and talent from abroad, the strategy will include measures to facilitate legal pathways to the EU, particularly for international students, researchers and highly skilled workers, as announced in the Union of Skills and in the Choose Europe for Science initiative”.
In order to attract third-country nationals who actively contribute to stimulating innovation and economic growth in the EU, the strategy will include measures to facilitate legal pathways for start-up founders and innovative entrepreneurs, as announced in the recently adopted European strategy for start-ups and scale-ups.
Future action on visa policy will focus on addressing emerging challenges, in particular those linked to security risks and irregular migration, the document adds.
The strategy will also build on recent developments aimed at modernising visa policy, in particular: i) the effective implementation of a new interoperable IT architecture; ii) the digitalisation of border management and visa procedures.
Link to the call: https://aeur.eu/f/i5k (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)