Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-18-Speech-2-489"
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"en.20100518.34.2-489"2
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"The visa policy of the European Union is harmonised and it is a common policy. It is based on three legal instruments applicable to Member States, namely Regulation (EC) No 539/2001, listing the third countries whose nationals are subject to visa requirements and those who are not; secondly, the visa code covering all procedures and conditions for issuing short-stay Schengen visas; and finally, Regulation (EC) No 1683/95 establishing the uniform format for visas. These rules apply to nationals of all third countries subject to visa requirement.
The first Regulation I referred to establishes a list of third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing external borders; this is the so-called ‘negative’ list. There is also the positive list: those nationals who are exempt from that requirement on the basis of different criteria, amongst which reciprocity is a basic principle. This Regulation is applicable to all EU Member States except for the United Kingdom and Ireland and also to Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
In accordance with the principle of reciprocity, the EU considers that, in the case of nationals from third countries who are exempted from the visa requirement for travelling to the EU Member States, the third country should provide reciprocal treatment for the EU citizens by exempting them from the visa requirement when travelling to that country. When a third country on the positive list maintains or introduces a visa obligation for nationals of one, two or more Member States, the reciprocity mechanisms apply. This is the framework in which the Commission could take steps to obtain the restoration of the visa-free travel by the third country, or if that is not achievable, to propose retaliatory measures on the temporary restoration of the visa requirement for nationals of that third country.
This system has proven to be quite efficient, as the steps taken by the Commission and drawn up in the periodical reciprocity report show, and under this reciprocity mechanism, applicable since 2005, 75 cases of non-reciprocity concerning 13 third countries of the positive list were notified by Member States. Since then, reciprocity has been established with most of these 13 countries, such as Japan, Panama, Singapore, Australia, Uruguay and Costa Rica, and recently the Commission concluded negotiations on a visa waiver with Brazil, and that will be submitted to you and to the Council very soon.
Problems of non-reciprocity continue to exist for certain Member States vis-à-vis the US and Canada, and this is something that we always bring up with these countries.
The mechanism does not apply in case a third country on the negative list maintains or imposes the visa obligation only on nationals of one or more member countries, or when the third country applies different conditions for citizens of different Member States. The community acquis does not contain rules for such cases and does not provide a specific mechanism, so it is very difficult for the EU to intervene."@en1
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