US visa law leaves EU countries in the cold

A new line of division has opened up in the EU over visa requirements for European citizens to enter the US.

A law passed by the Congress, which President George W. Bush is expected to sign in the coming days, would ease visa requirements for some countries from central and eastern Europe, but not all.

The European Commission is contemplating proposing retaliation if some EU states are left out.

The visa-waiver scheme, which lifts the requirement for European tourist and business travellers to obtain a visa, currently applies to just 15 of the EU states: Slovenia and all the pre-2004 states except Greece. The US says that if a country is to qualify for the visa-waiver scheme, then the refusal rate for its citizens’ applications for US visas should be less than 3%.

The law passed last week would raise that threshold to 10%, but this would still mean that travellers from Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary would need visas, as their countries’ refusal rates are greater than one in ten.

The European Commission is examining the US law and preparing a report for September which could suggest reciprocal measures.

Poland, which has a US visa refusal rate of 24-25%, had been hoping that the law would allow the US administration greater discretion in admitting countries to the programme, since the law envisages "extending visa-free travel privileges to nationals of foreign countries that are partners in the war on terrorism". But the visa-refusal conditions could cause problems for the government in Warsaw.

"The final result is a little disappointing but it is a step in the right direction for including Poland," said Paweł Kotowski, first secretary at Poland’s embassy in Washington.

Asked if there were fears that Poland could be excluded from the visa-waiver programme, Kotowski said: "That worries us a little, that is a concern for us."

Commission officials and some European diplomats argue that the visa-waiver programme could be extended to include all the remaining 12 EU states because the administration appears to have some flexibility in its application. The rate at which people overstay their US visas also has to be taken into account. For some member states, such as Poland, this is thought to be low.

András Simonyi, Budapest’s ambassador to Washington, said that he was confident that Hungary would be admitted to the visa-waiver programme, since the country’s visa refusal rate was close to 10%. "We are ready to accommodate the security concerns and also we’re pretty close to the percentages and it puts a little discipline on us too so I think that’s perfectly OK. We have to live with the fact that this is the reality of America today," he said.

Simonyi said that he believed new countries could be admitted to the visa-waiver programme before the Bush administration steps down in January 2009.

Citizens of all countries in the visa-waiver programme are already required to have machine-readable passports if they are to travel without a visa. The new law adds a requirement that they must apply online to enter the US at least 48 hours before their trip and pay a small fee. A new entry-exit system must also be put in place to determine if visitors are overstaying their 90-day period.

The Commission is concerned that introducing such new technology could cause delays in admitting EU member states into the visa-waiver programme and cause inconvenience for business travellers. Franco Frattini, the European commissioner for justice, freedom and security, has written to Michael Chertoff, the US secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, warning that the EU is considering imposing reciprocal online registration for US citizens visiting Europe.

László Kovács, the European commissioner for taxation and customs union, has also written to Chertoff, cautioning that the Commission could impose measures against the US over requirements in the new law for cargo that leaves EU ports for the US to be screened using costly technology.

A new line of division has opened up in the EU over visa requirements for European citizens to enter the US.