EU to set new grounds for suspending visa-free travel

European Union ministers and the European Parliament have settled on an update to the mechanism that allows the EU to suspend visa-free travel for citizens of third countries who are exempt from applying for a visa when travelling to the Schengen area, according to a June 17 statement by the Council of the EU.

“With this amended law the EU will be better placed to react to situations where visa-free travel is being abused or works against the interests of the EU,” the statement said.

The Council and the European Parliament agreed on a number of new grounds which will trigger the suspension mechanism.

The first is a lack of alignment of a country’s visa-free regime with the EU’s visa policy, in cases where – owing to this country’s geographical proximity to the EU – this may lead to increased non-authorised arrivals of citizens of other third countries.

Second, the operation of an investor citizenship scheme, whereby citizenship is granted to people who have no genuine link to the third country concerned, in exchange for pre-determined payments or investments.

Third, hybrid threats and deficiencies in document security legislation and procedures.

Fourth, a deterioration in the EU’s external relations with a third country, in particular when it comes to human rights and fundamental freedoms or serious breaches of the UN Charter.

The statement said that these reasons for suspension are added to existing grounds such as an increase in the number of asylum applications from nationals of a country for which the asylum recognition rate is low or an increase in the number of third-country nationals who are refused entry or found to be overstaying.

The new legislation will contain thresholds for some of these suspension grounds. This will lead to more clarity about when the suspension of visa freedom should kick in and make the mechanism more effective, the statement said.

A threshold of 30 per cent quantifies substantial increases of cases of refused entry and overstay, asylum applications and serious criminal offences.

The threshold to assess whether an asylum recognition rate should be considered low has been fixed at 20 per cent.

The Council and the European Parliament want the duration of temporary suspension of the visa exemption to increase from the current period of nine months to 12 months. This initial period can be extended by a further 24 months (instead of 18 months under the current system).

This temporary suspension phase will allow the European Commission to engage in a dialogue with the non-EU country so that the country in question can remedy the circumstances that led to the suspension, the statement said.

The EU can decide to permanently revoke the visa-free travel regime if the third country does not address the reasons that led to the temporary suspension.

The Council and the European Parliament also agreed to improve the mechanism by making it possible to only limit the visa freedom of decision-makers responsible for breaching fundamental rights and external relations obligations.

“Currently, all citizens are affected in the second phase of the suspension, but this can be disproportionate where a government is clearly responsible for the situation,” the statement said.

Under the new rules, the additional 24-month suspension phase would not automatically affect the entire population. Instead, in the above situations, the EU could decide to continue targeting  government officials and diplomats.

(Photo: Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry)