Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-21-Speech-1-080-000"

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"Mr President, Commissioner, back on 9 June 2010, members of the European Parliament and I tabled a question to the European Commission regarding Bulgarian, Romanian and Czech citizens requiring visas for Canada. Before this, during the last summit between the European Union and Canada, a commitment was made to remove the remaining barriers preventing a visa-free travel regime from being achieved for all European Union citizens. Almost two years have passed since then, but the visa regime is still in place, restricting the free movement of citizens from these countries. According to the European Parliament, there is only one category of citizens within the European Union, and there is definitely no ‘second-class’ category. The Commission’s negotiations with Canada on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement will define the future legal framework for economic relations between the European Union and Canada. A key aspect of economic and trade agreements is the extent to which they facilitate travel for trade partners. However, at present, this aspect is not being applied to its full extent as Canada requires visas for citizens from Romania, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. It is therefore important for such an agreement to be reached based on visa reciprocity. Introducing visa-free travel for citizens of all European Union Member States has to be a priority for the remainder of the negotiations. A visa waiver will help establish close ties benefiting both Canada and the European Union as an inseparable whole. Fairness needs to be achieved because, unfortunately, we are witnessing unilateral fairness: Canadian citizens can travel freely in all 27 Member States, whereas, at the same time, some fully-fledged Member States of the European Union are subject to a restriction. I firmly believe that waiving visa requirements will help strengthen cooperation in business and trade, encourage cultural and scientific exchanges and will allow stronger ties between Canada and Europe. Canada is a partner of the EU in many areas, which means that we must be committed together to removing the barriers which hinder us from achieving our common goal of creating an area of free movement. Achieving this common goal of ours involves removing restrictions and strengthening the principle of reciprocity, which are two elements that can be greatly beneficial to both Canadian and European citizens with whom we are ultimately travelling in the same boat thanks to this agreement."@en1
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