MEPs call for EU applicants to be taken off visa ‘blacklist’

Date: 23/04/1998

By Mark Turner

MEPs are expected to call for Romania and Bulgaria to be removed from the EU's visa 'blacklist' next week, amid demands for a complete rethink of the Union's travel regime.

The blacklist identifies around 90 countries whose citizens must obtain visas to travel in the Union, but Romania and Bulgaria are the only EU candidate countries it covers.

Ironically, the call by the European Parliament's internal affairs committee for a change in the current rules will coincide with Romanian Foreign Minister Andrei Plesu's protest to EU counterparts at an Association Council next week that they are making it extremely difficult for his country to integrate into western Europe.

"It is very difficult for our officials to travel to Brussels and other capitals to discuss enlargement," said a spokesman for Romania's mission to the Union.

"It is also difficult for tourists, or students taking part in EU education programmes like Leonardo and Socrates. Our business leaders are obliged to focus on eastern Europe where, for the moment, they can travel freely."

The European Court of Justice ruled last year that MEPs were not consulted sufficiently when the current regulations were drafted, and called for negotiations on a new set of rules.

The internal affairs committee is expected to call for two fundamental amendments next week, alongside changes to the blacklist.

Euro MPs will demand that a visa for one EU country should be recognised by all other member states and attack the existence of a 'grey list' of nations which are not on the blacklist, but whose citizens nevertheless have restricted access to some Union countries.

The three Baltic states, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, are among those on the 'grey list', prompting Estonian Foreign Affairs Minister Toomas Ilves, who needed a visa to travel to the opening of accession negotiations in Brussels last month, to launch a fierce attack on the situation.

However, it is unclear how the European Commission will react to the Parliament's demands, given that some member states are opposed to any changes to the current rules.

They remain unconvinced that Bulgaria and Romania have sufficient controls in place to stop people from further east using the countries as an entry point into the Union.