Brussels, 23/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - Maltese MEP Simon Busuttil (EPP-ED) got the support of around fifty MEPs from his group to demand that the European Commission pushes the USA to lift the visa obligation on nationals from 10 EU Member States.
On Wednesday, Mr Busuttil indicated that, “the visa is already an expensive and time-consuming burden. Imposing it on ten EU countries out of twenty-five simply makes it worse”. He pointed out that “people have the right to expect to be treated equally as citizens from other EU countries”. The fifteen older Member States, apart from Greece, are part of a visa waver scheme, granted by Washington, which allows their citizens to enter the USA without visas. The ten new Member States, except Slovenia, are not part of this scheme (EUROPE 9279). Busuttil recognised that the “response has been overwhelming” from MEPs, after his draft question received the support of almost all the MEPs from the EPP-ED group from the ten countries concerned, after just three days. In their parliamentary question, MEPs noted that no progress had been achieved on this dossier despite efforts from the Commission. They are therefore demanding to be informed about the actions planned to rectify this situation and call for a deadline to be imposed for scrapping these practices.
During his visit to Washington at the beginning of November, Mr Frattini, once again asked the US authorities to make some “visible and tangible progress” over reciprocity of visas. Commissioner Frattini's spokesperson informed EUROPE that “at this stage, the hypothesis of retaliation measures against the US are still real”. The Commission intends presenting a report on this question before 31 March 2007. (bc)