Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-21-Speech-1-140"
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"en.20080421.17.1-140"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the questions that you have asked me on the European visa rules applicable to Ukraine and Belarus.
Nevertheless, I should like to emphasise that the existing
on the issuance of short-term visas provides for exemption from visa fees for some categories of persons, such as children under the age of six, students and researchers. In addition, under the current rules, the Member States may, at any time, cancel or reduce the visa fee in justifiable individual cases, for example for humanitarian reasons, to protect cultural interests or on foreign policy grounds.
Furthermore, the neighbouring Member States – Poland, Latvia and Lithuania in particular – always have the possibility of negotiating local border traffic agreements with Belarus. This would be a means of facilitating border crossing and the movement of border residents between Belarus and its neighbouring countries, whilst promoting contacts between local communities. Border residents holding a special local border traffic permit would be exempt from the visa requirement. Poland and Belarus have already entered into negotiations to that end.
This concludes what I wanted to say, whilst emphasising the pertinence of the questions that you have asked and bringing you up to date with the most recent developments in this matter.
Firstly, in the case of Ukraine, the Agreement on readmission and the Agreement on the facilitation of issuance of visas, both of which entered into force at the beginning of 2008, represent an important milestone in relations between the European Union and Ukraine. On the one hand, they will promote people-to-people contacts, which in turn will help improve mutual understanding and strengthen relations in all areas, and, on the other, they will commit both sides, the European Union and Ukraine, to close cooperation to combat illegal immigration.
The first priority is to ensure the speedy, operational and harmonised implementation of the Agreement on the facilitation of issuance of visas to Ukrainian citizens. To ensure that this Agreement is properly and uniformly applied, draft guidelines have been drawn up and approved by the Member States and the Ukrainian authorities. These guidelines should be finalised and adopted in the near future by the Joint Committee established by the Agreement.
As stated in the preamble to the Agreement between the European Community and Ukraine on the facilitation of the issuance of visas, the introduction of a visa-free travel regime for the citizens of Ukraine is recognised only as a long-term prospect. The process that will lead to the introduction of such a regime depends mainly on the satisfactory implementation of the Agreement on readmission and of the Agreement on the facilitation of issuance of visas.
I should like to emphasise that the enlargement of the Schengen area in no way affects the arrangements for carrying out checks at the borders between Ukraine and those Member States which became part of the Schengen area on 21 December 2007. Those Member States have been applying the Schengen rules on external border checks since their accession, and since September 2007 they also carry out checks on persons in the Schengen Information System – SIS.
However, to make travel easier for Ukrainian citizens living in the border area, agreements on local border traffic have been signed between Hungary and Ukraine, and between Ukraine and Poland. Moreover, the Commission has called for amendments to the agreement between Ukraine and Hungary with regard to the demarcation of the border area in order to bring this agreement into line with Community rules; this is also the case for the agreement between Ukraine and Poland. That is all I have to say about travel for Ukrainian citizens living in the border area.
The situation for visas, on the other hand, is different. Prior to 21 December 2007 those Member States that did not yet fully apply the Schengen
were not bound by the Schengen provisions on visa fees. These Member States could therefore waive this fee for all Ukrainian citizens. However, this is now no longer possible. Nevertheless, the standard visa fee of EUR 60 does not apply to Ukrainian visa applicants. As confirmed by the Agreement between the European Community and Ukraine that entered into force on 1 January 2008, the fee for processing visa applications of Ukrainian citizens will remain at EUR 35. In addition, the Agreement exempts broad categories of Ukrainian visa applicants from the visa fee, which means that more than 50%, I repeat, more than 50% of Ukrainian nationals now wishing to travel to Schengen countries benefit from a full waiving of the visa fee.
I should now like to turn to Belarus. In its Communication on strengthening the European Neighbourhood Policy, dated 4 December 2006, the Commission emphasised the importance of facilitating the issuance of visas for relations with the countries covered by the Neighbourhood Policy. The Commission restated the European Union’s willingness to develop Action Plans with neighbouring countries and to enter into negotiations with them in order to facilitate the issuance of visas and the granting of permission for readmission.
Belarus is one of the countries covered by the Neighbourhood Policy, but it has to be said that no Action Plan has been developed with this country yet owing to its overall political situation. This is why there are no plans to open discussions on the possible facilitation of the issuance of visas and on readmission with Belarus at this stage."@en1
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