Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 5 July 2006 - Strasbourg

14. Visa policy with regard to western Balkan countries (debate)

  President. The next item is the joint debate on

- the oral question by Doris Pack on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, Gisela Kallenbach on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, Hannes Swoboda on behalf of the PSE Group, Erik Meijer, Ignasi Guardans Cambó, Jelko Kacin and Henrik Lax to the Council, on visa policy towards the countries of the Western Balkans (O-0063/2006 B6-0315/2006),

- the oral question by Sarah Ludford, Jelko Kacin, Henrik Lax and Ignasi Guardans Cambó, on behalf of the ALDE Group, to the Council on visa facilitation for the countries of the Western Balkans, (O-0077/2006 B6-0320/2006), and

- the oral question by Sarah Ludford, Jelko Kacin, Henrik Lax and Ignasi Guardans Cambó, on behalf of the ALDE Group, to the Council, on visa facilitation for the countries of the Western Balkans (O-0078/2006 B6-0321/2006).

  Doris Pack (PPE-DE), author. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the countries of South-Eastern Europe, as they move towards the European Union, must reform themselves; they must adopt standards and work together on a regional basis, which means, in practical terms, that they must be reconciled with one another. They know that, and they are doing it, some of them faster than others, yet, despite all their efforts, they are denied unhindered access to the European Community, something that the Yugoslavs, at any rate, always enjoyed.

The ministers of internal affairs, and the national politicians too, ought, for a moment, to visualise themselves or their families having only some EUR 200 to live on and having to fork out practically all of that to get a visa, a Schengen visa, and a transit visa, and, in order to hand over the money, having to queue, sometimes for days or even weeks.

Even our counterparts in the national parliaments of South-Eastern Europe have to apply for a visa every time they want to attend meetings of the Council of Europe. Over 70% of the young people in Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo or Albania have never ventured outside their own region or their own country. We, in the European Union, are currently opening up our educational programmes; how are they supposed to work if the visa rules are so onerous?

How are businesses supposed to move in if local workers cannot travel to the company headquarters – in France or England, say – except subject to very difficult conditions? In Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, the crime rate is less than the average across the European Union, so why, despite that, do we not make it easier for the people who live there to come to us? Where the conditions for the issuing of visas are concerned, Russia gets better treatment than these countries do, and one wonders why.

These countries are in the midst of the EU, and we ourselves have a real interest in their well-being and in their growth and development. This is a matter of our own self-interest.

It was with the help of our European Union that Bosnia and Herzegovina managed to secure its borders, and the neighbouring countries are doing the same, so let us take off our blinkers and help to do away with these unnecessary and humiliating barriers.

  Hannes Swoboda (PSE), author. – (DE) Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, even though the Members of this House who are speaking in today’s debate are from different countries and different political groupings, what we all agree on is that more must be done to bring this region, which runs the risk of becoming a black hole in terms of European unification, closer to the European Union.

We are well acquainted with its problems. We know about the nationalism and the narrow-mindedness, but we also know of the earnest desire, particularly among young people, to enter into this Europe and adopt European standards. It is not only in the interests of these people, but also in our own, that these connections may be made.

We do indeed, then, hope that the Finnish Presidency will continue what the Austrian Presidency – although it did not initiate it – certainly stepped up, and we also put our hopes in Commissioner Frattini, who has shown himself to be very knowledgeable and very willing. We know from our travels in these countries just what a favourable reception is given to much of what he has said and to the headway he has made where this visa issue is concerned.

Yes, I know, it is the ministers of the interior, above all, who are standing in the way, but Mrs Pack was right to say just now that those who have wrongdoing on their minds will get into the European Union anyway. Let us be honest about the fact that they will obtain a visa by devious means or find other ways of getting into the European Union without one, but those whose intentions are innocent, those who want to study or gain further training, those who want to invest and establish economic links, those who are politically active, must endure the ignominy of spending days, weeks, or even months in their quest for a visa.

I am well aware that there are certain conditions that have to be met. The countries concerned must also ensure that the obligations to take people back are met and other criteria complied with, but I really do urge both of you to use your influence to ensure that these countries, and their young people in particular, are given the chance to get to know Europe, to become familiar with our standards, and then the process of becoming part of the European Union will be made all the easier for them.

I hope that you will both be very pro-active in bringing this about, not only so that these countries may be helped, but also so that we may be helped to build up, with the young people of the Balkans and of South-Eastern Europe, a Europe in which we can all share.

  Jelko Kacin (ALDE), author. – (SL) Citizens of the countries of the Western Balkans experience significant problems in travelling around Europe. The most extreme example of all is Kosovo where they have passports which are not recognised by many European countries. Commissioner, Kosovo Albanians are exchanging their UNMIK passports for other passports and we, Member States of the European Union, are literally forcing them into crime and into a search for other, parallel passports. This serves, in effect, to illustrate the sheer misery of our current visa regime. Surely, Commissioner, as Members of the European Union, we can do more to place greater value on UNMIK passports.

In order to speed up the process of Europeanisation in the Western Balkans, we need a vastly more flexible approach, except in the case of criminals, of course – they are very resourceful and will find their way everywhere. I am talking of ordinary people who would like to experience Europe and European values in practice, and preferably while they are still growing up, receiving an education and building a set of values.

For this reason, Commissioner, it seems to me that we have to do more to find a solution for people in the various countries of the Western Balkans so they do not have to wait for hours on end for a visa only to be told eventually by an embassy clerk that they cannot get a visa and that they must go back.

Visas are issued in capital cities. These are the least developed parts of Europe and these people have to invest a huge amount of time and a lot of money, not to mention pride, when applying for visas. It is, therefore, only fair that we should amend the current visa regime.

  Gisela Kallenbach (Verts/ALE), author. – (DE) Mr President, over recent years, I have been a very frequent visitor to the countries of the Western Balkans, and whenever I have been there, the main thing that people wanted to talk about was the restrictive visa policy of the EU Member States.

This is a region in which generations are growing up with their only experience of Western Europe being derived from time spent there as refugees or from the television, neither of which are really suitable ways of familiarising oneself with good examples of how democratic societies based on the rule of law work in practice. Experience of such things is out of the reach of most people in South-Eastern Europe or involves considerable obstacles, and that is where there must be changes; on that point I am in full agreement with my fellow Members.

We know, too, Commissioner Frattini, that you and your fellow Commissioner Mr Rehn are strongly supportive of this process, but it is proving tough going and several Member States are standing in the way. It is in the best interests of the EU of 25 that we should act once and for all, for any further delay in giving people the freedom to travel is ammunition to the nationalist, anti-European and, indeed, anti-democratic groupings in these countries. Any and every delay isolates those people who have pinned their hopes on European integration, and, as my fellow Members have already said, it hinders the economic development that is so urgently needed.

Although Austria had put the Western Balkans at the top of its list of priorities, no new decisions were taken about them; it is for that reason that we request the Finnish Presidency of the Council, as a matter of urgency, to take up this cause, to appeal to its colleagues in office to be more open in dealing with this matter, and not to be taken in by the spurious argument according to which a restrictive visa policy prevents crime, be it organised or of any other kind, for the opposite is more likely to be the case.

I have a final request to make of you, that you tell the Member States to treat applicants for visas in their external delegations with the same dignity and respect as they themselves would expect when they are overseas.

  Paula Lehtomäki, President-in-Office of the Council. (FI) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as we well know, at present all citizens of countries in the Western Balkans, except for Croatia, need a visa when travelling to the European Union. Visa requirements, as has been mentioned in this discussion, obviously complicate travel arrangements and raise costs. We must remember, however, that this issue is crucial to the control of the Union’s external borders.

I quite understand that the European Union’s policy on visas is seen as awkward in the Western Balkans, and even as a factor that is hampering rapprochement with the Union. In the area of the former Yugoslavia they still remember a time when visas were not needed.

It is obvious that, for example, the mobility of youth and students needs to be facilitated. This is a way of lending support to the notions of access to information, open democracy and social development. One important goal of future flexibility on visa requirements will be to promote and facilitate contact between young people in the Western Balkans and the rest of Europe.

The EU has nominated the countries of the Western Balkans as possible candidate countries. They have a clear EU perspective, which also ultimately means relaxing visa requirements. There is nevertheless some way to go before we can start negotiating the waiving of visa requirements. That will require the Western Balkan countries to introduce significant administrative reforms in, for example, greater security of documentation and the fight against organised crime and corruption.

At the Thessaloniki Summit in summer 2003, the European Council stated that the issue of visas was important for the countries of the Western Balkans. Since then, the Commission has discussed with each Western Balkan country the necessary administrative preparations to make the visa regime easier and, in the long term, waive visa requirements altogether. In January 2006 the Commission issued a communication on the Western Balkans in which it set out a large number of proposals also to make the visa regime easier in accordance with the Hague Programme. The Council is committed to the implementation of the proposals on the Thessaloniki agenda, and has also stated that it supports the Commission’s proposals.

One important step forward in the area of increased mobility is the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on local border traffic, due to enter into force soon. This will make it easier for border residents to cross the external borders of the EU. This will be of special importance in the case of the Western Balkans when Bulgaria and Romania join the EU.

On the request of the Council, the Commission is also to put forward proposals on the start of talks on visa flexibility agreements with all the countries in the Western Balkans. Special action would be taken, for example, to promote researcher and student exchanges and facilitate the movement of other separately identifiable groups.

The visa flexibility agreements will be separately negotiable Community agreements within the framework of the Schengen rules. They will be closely linked to the readmission agreements which the Hague Programme sets forth as a condition of easing visa requirements. This way the Union will also benefit from the arrangement because the countries in the Western Balkans will at the same time undertake to readmit citizens of third countries who have passed through them illegally on their way to the EU. At present only Albania has a readmission agreement with the Union. The countries of the Western Balkans have bilateral readmission agreements with many Member States of the Union, so we assume that negotiations at Community level will also go smoothly.

The Commission has already put forward proposals for talks both on visa flexibility agreements and readmission agreements with Macedonia, in the former Republic of Yugoslavia. These mandates for negotiation are now being discussed by the Council at working group level. When the Council has adopted them, the Commission can begin talks. Proposals for mandates for other countries in the Western Balkans are expected to come from the Commission in July. The working groups will try to deal with the proposals as quickly as possible for a decision to be taken by the Council.

The General Affairs and External Relations Council, in its conclusions of June this year, hoped that the mandates for visa flexibility and readmission agreements would be adopted this year, so that talks on visa flexibility could be brought to a conclusion with all the countries in the Western Balkans by the end of next year. We hope that the first agreements will be in place as early as this year. The Finnish Presidency will aim to support this timetable of objectives, which would also ensure that the increases in visa fees that take effect next year would not apply to the Western Balkan countries.

  Franco Frattini, Vice-President of the Commission. (IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the opinions of the Members of this Parliament all point in the right direction, which is the same one that the European Commission intends to take, and I find the words of the President-in-Office of the Council very reassuring.

The Commission endorses the European vocation of the countries of the Western Balkans, because it considers the region to be strategic for Europe. We have worked intensively over the past six months with the Austrian Presidency and we hope that some emergency measures can be implemented. These emergency measures will be part of an overall package that will be the subject of a political agreement with all the countries of the Western Balkans concerned.

In the first place, these measures are intended to facilitate the visa regime, and I refer to certain categories, above all students, researchers and the business community, whom we hope to encourage to move around more freely in order to attract investment and to invest. It will be a simplified regime as regards procedure and also as regards the availability of visas, which – and here I agree with the speakers – is currently too restrictive.

Within the same political agreement package, we are planning agreements for the readmission of illegal immigrants. We have already done so in a few cases; for example the agreement with Albania has been signed and is already in force. This is a Europe-Albania agreement for the repatriation of illegal immigrants who come from Albania. As the President—in-Office of the Council has just mentioned, we intend to sign the same type of agreement with the other States as rapidly as possible.

It is also obvious that the concerns of the Member States will have to be taken into consideration. They are especially concerned about the level of security in terms of preventing corruption, preventing and combating organised crime, and the different types of trafficking, including, unfortunately, the trafficking of human beings in the region. We will ask these countries to collaborate more closely with Europe in order to improve the conditions for combating organised crime and corruption.

In this context, one measure that we feel is useful for exerting pressure on some Member States, which have raised objections over the past months, is the request that these countries equip themselves as quickly as possible with passports that conform to European standards, that is which comply with the rules of security as regards combating the falsification of passports and identity documents. This will help to prevent people travelling under false identities.

I think that countries in this region have the political will to do this. I have personally met all the Ministers of Home Affairs and the Prime Ministers of the countries in this region and I can tell you now that, before 15 July, I will apply to the Commission for mandates to negotiate visa facilitation agreements for all the countries of the Western Balkans. I will do so for Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro; it has already been done in the case of Macedonia because the Commission approved my proposal a few weeks ago. By 15 July, all the countries in the Western Balkans will have seen our formal proposal to the Council. I have reason to believe that the proposal will be announced on 15 July to the Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers, the first Council under the Finnish Presidency.

I intend to provide initial information on the details of the proposals, if the Presidency, as I hope, accepts them, on 24 July to the Council of Ministers of Home Affairs, whom I will of course provide with a copy of the documents that the Commission has approved.

I strongly hope, or rather, after talking with the Ministers representing the Presidency, I am quite sure that, by the end of this year, there will be a concrete possibility of the largest possible number of mandates to negotiate visa facilitation agreements being approved.

This will have two immediate results, the first being that we will be able to implement the visa facilitation agreements and, simultaneously, the readmission agreements, by 2007, therefore over a very short period of time. I hope that the negotiations will be over quickly if, as I believe, the political will exists. This will mean not only that, as from 2007, the countries of the Western Balkans will benefit from a facilitated visa regime, but also that these countries will not have to bear the increased cost of a visa, which is rising to EUR 60, which has already been decided by the Council.

I am sure that all the countries of the Western Balkans will fall into this category and will thus be equipped with an administrative and bureaucratic, even preferential, visa regime and will not have to bear the increase in cost.

This is the precise agenda that I propose to follow; there is an understanding within the European Commission with Commissioner Olli Rehn, who is responsible for enlargement, and therefore the negotiating proposal will be on the Council table within a few days.

  Panagiotis Beglitis, on behalf of the PSE Group. – (EL) Mr President, I too should like to take my turn in thanking the President-in-Office of the Council and Commissioner Frattini for their reports. However, I should like to express the particular concern that, three years after the decisions by the Thessaloniki European Council, there has been no progress in changes to the visa system.

I believe that what the President-in-Office of the Council and Commissioner Frattini have told us today is, of course, positive but, Commissioner, we cannot wait until the end of 2007 to complete the procedure for changing the visa system. I fear that the end of 2007 will be far too late.

The problem is not procedural, it is deeply political. It is a problem of the strategic credibility of the European Union. It is a problem of contributing to peace, to stability, to cooperation, to the strengthening of the European integration of the countries of the Western Balkans.

In fact, no one can understand why negotiations have started with Russia, China and Ukraine but not with the countries of the Western Balkans, why the system is much simplified for entry visas to the European Union from Pakistan and Iran, for young people from Pakistan and Iran, but not for young people from the Western Balkans.

Why, Commissioner, have visa fees been increased to EUR 60? I understand what you said now, that they will not apply if agreements are signed. However, I fear that 2007 is far too late. I believe that the increase should not apply for these countries as of now. I believe ultimately that the European Union must send a strong message, say no to the ghettoisation ...

(The President cut off the speaker)

  Henrik Lax, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – (SV) Mr President, Mrs Lehtomäki, Mr Frattini, the fact that the western Balkan countries are being walled in by visa requirements is a tragedy for those countries, whose people have been able to travel freely in Western Europe for 20 years. For those of us still able to do so, it is almost impossible to understand what it means suddenly to be placed behind a border that cannot be crossed without a visa. It does not stop only people from getting about. In the same way, thoughts are prevented from crossing borders. In today’s knowledge-based economy, mobility is just as important a requirement as access to modern information technology. In today’s globalised world, visa policy cannot, therefore, take the same form as it did in the 1950s or even the 1980s. That must be our starting point when the EU formulates its visa policy.

As Mrs Lehtomäki also said, the EU needs a clear plan for simplifying the visa procedure and for finally getting rid of the visa requirement. It must be made clear to the countries that are our neighbours what conditions they have to fulfil in order, firstly, to see visa procedures genuinely simplified and, secondly, to see the compulsory visa requirement one day done away with. We must be able to promise them that the visa requirement will be abolished when fewer than 2% of visa applications are rejected.

I welcome Mr Frattini’s objectives, which are very constructive. One of the obvious goals of the EU’s bilateral visa agreement must, however, be to facilitate mobility for all, and not only for certain categories of people. We give out the wrong signal if we place people in different categories, such as students and cultural figures as distinct from farmers and parents of small children. The fact is that everyone must have the right to inhale the European atmosphere.

It is a problem that, for example, the agreement with Russia is of such limited scope. It applies to only a small number of people – fewer than a tenth of people travelling – and does not in practice simplify the visa procedures. Not even the fee is to be reduced. On behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, I should like to see a more ambitious visa policy, genuinely simplified procedures for the Balkan countries and, indeed, for everyone, and the clear objective of abolishing the compulsory visa requirement. It must be made quicker, cheaper and simpler to obtain a visa, and the European Parliament must be allowed to comment on the authority to negotiate that is now in the process of being produced.

  Paula Lehtomäki, President-in-Office of the Council. (FI) Mr President, it is obvious from this debate that Parliament would like the Council and the Commission to take this matter to heart, and that is what has happened. This is a very important issue for us. Although Mr Lax raised the point that people should not be categorised, perhaps, however, it is particularly important to facilitate the movement of young Europeans in this continent as quickly as possible. Our aim is for the first agreements to be signed during the course of this year.

Visa flexibility is a very real issue that affects ordinary people and which can strengthen rapprochement with the European Union in the countries of the Western Balkans. It is also a way of lending support to the stability and development of this region, and it is therefore important that progress be made in this area. We nevertheless have to bear in mind that this is also about controlling the Union’s external borders and not just an expression of political will. We will, however, push energetically forward with this issue.

  President. The debate is closed.