EU threatens obligatory visa for US diplomats
Travel between Europe and the US is set to remain a hot topic for the coming months (Photo: EUobserver.com)
HONOR MAHONY
23.07.2008 @ 18:45 CET
The European Commission has raised the stakes in its tussle with Washington over visas by suggesting that from the beginning of next year US diplomats be required to apply for a visa for t ravel to the European Union.
Brussels' move is prompting by frustration at the US government over the slow pace of talks on granting all EU citizens visa-free travel to the United States.
"No tangible progress has been made regarding the United States despite all efforts of the commission and individual member states," the commission said on Wednesday (23 July).
"Therefore, the commission will propose retaliatory measures e.g. temporary restoration of the visa requirement for US nationals holding diplomatic and service or official passports as of 1 January, 2009 if no progress is achieved."
At the moment, citizens from 12 of the 27 member states need a visa when travelling to the US – these include most of the ex-Communist countries that joined the bloc since 2004 as well as Greece.
The visa issue has bubbled below the surface continually since the EU's major enlargement to the east four years ago.
The countries it took on included several very pro-US states – some of whom committed troops to Iraq – and they could not understand why their citizens were not being treated equally to citizens from western states such as Germany, France and the UK.
Earlier this year, Washington irritated Brussels by initiating air passenger data deals with individual eastern countries on the understanding that they in return would also become part of the US visa-waiver programme.
The Czech Republic reached a deal with Washington in spring, it was later followed by Hungary and Bulgaria.
The European Commission was annoyed at what it saw as Washington's divide-and-rule tactics, especially as it believed the bloc's data privacy laws would be undermined as a side effect.
Eastern member states have often raised the prospect of reciprocity on the visa issue but this is the first time that the commission has come with a concrete retaliatory suggestion.
"It is unacceptable that nationals from some third countries can benefit from visa-free travel to the EU whilst some of our fellow EU citizens cannot travel visa-free to those countries," said EU justice commissioner Jacques Barrot.
The US visa waiver programme was set up in 1988 and originally focussed on restricting immigration, but the emphasis changed to a security issue after the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.
Washington assess countries for inclusion in the programme on the basis of a number of criteria such as the number of visas that have been refused - however the EU would like the bloc to be treated as whole.
Travel arrangements between the two blocs is set to continue as a hot topic for the coming months.
The US has already announced plans to create an Electronic System of Travel Authorisation for all citizens travelling to the States, including Europeans, from January next year.
It maintains it is not a disguised form of visa, but the Europe Commission has yet to establish whether it amounts to a visa policy or not.
