On the project

On 1 January 2008 the Visa Facilitation Agreement (VFA) came into force for citizens of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia with the aim to enable easier Schengen visa procedures for travelling to the EU.

The VFA envisages benefits such as a unified visa fee of 35 Euro, a further total exemption from the fee for certain categories of applicants on personal or professional grounds, decisions on visas are to be made within 10 calendar days and the requirements in terms of the accompanying documents have been simplified. From this stems the expectation that the travel to the 24 countries in the Schengen zone should now be easier, including the obtaining of multiple-entry short-term visas.

The project “Does it really matter? Visa facilitation in the Western Balkans: Monitoring of the New Agreements” is implemented jointly by European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) in partnership with local organisations from countries where the VFA is being implemented: Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC), European Movement-Albania, Vesta-Bosnia and Herzegovina, Center for Civic Education-Montenegro and Citizens’ Pact for SEE-Serbia. The project aims at enabling better access for citizens to the benefits offered by the VFA. It consists of three activities: a survey, the hotline and the launching of the final report in Brussels during which the final results will be presented to the main stakeholders.

The survey of visa applicants in front of selected EU Members States consulates was conducted in May and early June 2008. It was based on the Batory Foundation methodology whereby a team of several persons interview visa applicants.

ECAS’ hotline starts to ask whether “visa facilitation” in the Western Balkans is working

Is visa facilitation making life easier for people to come from the Balkans to EU? The progress reports on the hotline in the Western Balkans have just been published, and, they provide no grounds for complacency. There is a huge gap between the declaration by the European Council on 20 June that “promoting people-to-people contacts between the Western Balkans and the EU is of the utmost importance”, and what is actually happening on the ground. So far we can find no positive response to visa facilitation from across the Region, except as an idea. Most people do not perceive the difference between the situations before and after the entry into force of the agreement.

Key points to emerge from the hotline are:

1. People are not informed properly about the provisions of their visa facilitation agreement. A government hotline in Albania, for example, was discontinued. The ECAS hotline itself may have helped in this respect since the country progress reports record extensive media coverage. It often became a helpline to brief callers on the documents required and the procedures to obtain a visa. The progress reports are critical of the failure of the governments to inform their own citizens, but better communication is also the responsibility of Commission delegations and member states’ consulates.

2. The 35 euro cost of the visa processing can be offset by other costs involved to obtain an interview at the consulate. In many complaints, people have had to come back 2-3 times to get early in the queue at the consulate, only to find agency representatives in there with multiple applications. To reduce this problem, some consulates introduced call-based appointment procedures but there are complaints of lack of response but also long delays which are paid for by the caller, (i.e. a rate of 1 euro per minute has been quoted or a total of 20 euro) thus adding to the visa charge. In Macedonia, a truck driver was charged a standard fee of 8.5 euro by the specialised agency for the Italian embassy, and apparently expected to pay an additional fee for a “successful outcome.” Such add-on costs must be examined, eliminated or reduced.

3.The 10 days delay to obtain a visa is generally respected but often at the expense of long waiting periods for getting an appointment, which is not covered by the agreement. “To have an appointment with the Greek and Italian consulates here in Triana may require 2-3 months after you call them.” Clearly an extreme case, but there are examples in the reports of people missing a relative’s wedding , the folk dance association which was unable to obtain a visa to participate in a competition in Italy, someone’s son unable to perform at a festival – precisely the type of people-to-people contacts the EU at the highest political level, wants to promote. In the case of a Serbian businessman who wanted to apply for a visa upon an invitation from a company based in the Schengen zone, he was informed that he could come and submit the necessary documents in two months, long after his scheduled meeting. The add-on time must be eliminated or reduced.

4. Applications can well be rejected, and then without explanation. The hotline shows that particular groups of people are vulnerable to refusals: students who may also be considered as job-seekers, truck drivers, artists or part-time, non- accredited journalists. What is even more difficult to understand is why a elderly Macedonian couple who applied for a visa to Germany were told this is “not a necessary trip and they don’t have anything to do there.” They wanted to visit their son, daughter and grandchildren. In some cases, the barrier to obtaining a visa was a requirement – not a standard one contained in the visa facilitation agreement – to present an additional document or certificate from the host or country of origin, which had not been asked for on previous occasions. There is evidence from the hotline of national authorities adding different and distinct requirements. In this respect it has been recorded that every embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina has its own additional rules and therefore different conditions guiding the application procedure. In other cases, where applicants considered that they had met all the necessary requirements they were still rejected but not given any explanation of the reason, which discouraged them from making further applications. A famous Albanian footballer was not granted a Schengen visa and said “I haven’t had any problems before, even in times when visa granting was very restricted. Athletes should find easier the process of visa granting, not even more difficult, especially when this is mentioned in the Visa Facilitation Agreement.”

5. Standards of good administration and politeness towards applicants are sometimes wanting. Such issues are not covered by the visa facilitation agreements. Apparently 29% of the citizens contacting the hotline were unhappy with the way their road to the Schengen countries started with the respective consulates in Montenegro. And why for example did an official ask a well-known Albanian academic “Are you going to sleep under the bridge?” As one caller pointed out, applying for a visa is a stressful experience. You often do not know until the last minute whether you will be able to make the trip. It is necessary to ensure in the application of the visa regime that consulates respect the EU charter of fundamental rights, and in particular the standards it sets for good administration and respect for human dignity.

The desired positive effects of the visa facilitation procedures appear not to have materialised clearly through lack of information or to have been offset by other delays and costs and a more restrictive climate in general, with the ability of national authorities to add “their visa policy”. Particularly worrying are complaints suggesting that it has become harder, not easier to obtain visas than in the past. The hotline has not found much evidence of the advantage of long-term multiple entry visas becoming more widespread.

On this issue, the EU clearly has its work cut out to match rhetoric with practice. The hotline and survey results still have to be completed. At this stage however, the question must be asked whether the compromise of visa facilitation can bring perceptible benefits to people-to-people contacts and bring the Western Balkans closer to Europe. Would it not be better to speed up visa liberalisation?

For further information please contact:

Tony Venables
Director
ECAS European Citizen Action Service
Tel: 02 548 04 98
tony.vanables@ecas.org

Kenan Hadzimusic
Project Manager
ECAS European Citizen Action Service
Tel: +32 2 548 04 93
kenan.hadzimusic@ecas.org