Proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the Agreement between the European Union and the Kingdom of Tonga on the short-stay visa waiver

Council Regulation (EC) No 539/2001 lists the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of a visa when crossing the external borders of the Member States and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement. Regulation (EC) No 539/2001 is applied by all Member States, with the exception of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Regulation (EU) No 509/2014 amended Regulation (EC) No 539/2001 by transferring 19 countries to Annex II, which lists the third countries whose nationals are exempt from the visa requirement. The reference to each of those countries in Annex II is accompanied by a footnote which specifies that "the exemption from the visa requirement shall apply from the date of entry into force of an agreement on visa exemption to be concluded with the European Union".

Regulation (EU) No 509/2014 was adopted on 20 May 2014 and entered into force on 9 June 2014. In July 2014, the Commission presented a Recommendation to the Council to authorise it to start negotiations on visa waiver agreements with each of the following 17 countries: Dominica, Grenada, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, the United Arab Emirates and Vanuatu. On 9 October 2014, the Council addressed negotiating directives to the Commission.

The negotiations on the visa waiver agreement with Tonga were opened on 19 November 2014 in Brussels. During that meeting the entire draft text could be reviewed and agreement was reached on all its aspects. After a number of subsequent informal exchanges, the agreement was initialled by an exchange of letters between the chief negotiators on 29 May 2015 (Tonga) and 10 June 2015 (Union). The Member States were informed during a meeting of the Visa Working Party of the Council held on 15 June 2015.

The attached proposal constitutes the legal instrument for concluding the agreement.

EUR-Lex: COM(2015)433: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2015:433:FIN

EUR-Lex: COM(2015)434: Proposal for a Council Decision on the signing, on behalf of the European Union, and provisional application of the Agreement between the European Union and the Kingdom of Tonga on the short-stay visa waiver http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2015:434:FIN

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