Brussels, 01/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - When consulted, on Thursday, on the proposal of regulation aimed at fixing the list of third countries whose nationals are subject to the visa obligation in the EU and the list of those whose nationals are exempt from this obligation, the European Parliament approved its rapporteur, German Christian Democrat Klaus-Heiner Lehne, and amended several elements of this proposal. The main amendments adopted by the plenary are those that aim to abolish what the rapporteur (and most MEPs) consider as "discriminatory treatment" towards Romania. It said such treatment "is not justified". Above all, during its vote, the Parliament removed the article stating that the Commission must call on this country to indicate the commitments it is ready to subscribe to, mainly regarding illegal immigration and stay, in order to make a first report to the Council together with all relevant recommendations, by 30 June 2001 at the latest. (We recall that the visa obligation that affects another country applying for EU membership, Bulgaria, should be abolished by the General Affairs Council on 19 and 20 March, without imposing any additional conditions on this country).
Other amendments adopted in plenary stipulate that: - procedures and conditions for the issue of visas by Member States should not entail "unreasonable expenses for those applying for visas"; - a Member State may dispense from the visa obligation young people taking part in Community youth programmes. In addition, the Parliament added a reference to "stateless persons in the sense of the New York Convention of 28 September 1954" and to "statutory refugees under the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951", where the regulation simply referred to the obligations of the Europe Agreement of Strasbourg of 20 April 1959 on the abolition of visas for refugees.