The Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997 communitarised EU policy on visas. It also envisaged specific arrangements for the UK and Ireland, who completely opted out of the Schengen acquis, and Denmark who reserved the right to opt out of the new developments of the Schengen acquis (for an overview of EU integration in visa policy see Meloni 2006). On the basis of the Treaty, the EU established ‘black’ and ‘white’ visa lists, the uniform format of visas and the Visa Identification system. While the
member states remain responsible for implementation of visa policy at consular level, the Union concludes visa facilitation agreements with third countries that aim to ease issuance of visas for certain categories of travellers. The Commission can also launch infringement procedures against member states who fail to comply with common rules on visa issuance.
Post-soviet countries, with the exception of the three Baltic candidate states, appeared on the first EU-wide ‘black list’ of third countries whose nationals needed a visa to cross the external borders of the member states which was annexed to Council Regulation (EC) No 2317/95 of 25 September 1995 and superseded by Council Regulation (EC)574/1999 of 12 March 1999. They reappeared on the ‘black list’ in the Council Regulation (EC) 539/2001 of 15 March 2001 which has also introduced the ‘white list’ of third countries whose citizens are exempt from visa requirement, as was envisaged by the Amsterdam Treaty. The criteria which govern a third country’s position on either the ‘black’ or ‘white’ lists involve concerns of illegal migration, public policy and security, EU’s relations with the third country and considerations of the implications of regional coherence and reciprocity (Council 2001). Most commonly the countries are treated in groups as a region, thus, visa policy reflects the EU vision of regionalism (Guild & Bigo 2005: 212).
The idea of easing the visa regime for the European post-soviet countries takes root in the EU’s Eastern enlargement. Ahead of the accession to the EU and later to the Schengen zone, Central and Eastern European states had to introduce visa regimes or stricter visa requirements for their non-EU neighbours. It went against historical, cultural, human and trade links across the borders and limited the ability of the ‘new’ member states to use visa policy as a foreign policy tool. Thus, they have become the
main advocates for EU visa liberalisation with the Eastern neighbours. Their voices against a new “paper curtain” in Europe have been joined by the non-state actors – NGOs, think-tanks, the media – protesting against the visa hurdles and proposing measures to alleviate the impact of the strict visa regulations (Jileva 2004).
The European Commission also supported and contributed to the idea of greater people’s mobility between the enlarged EU and its new neighbours. Proposing the policy framework for EU relations with the new neighbourhood in 2003, the Commission for the first time mentioned visa facilitation in the context of border crossing for bona fide third-country nationals living in the border areas and suggested the EU “examine wider application of visa-free regimes” (European Commission 2003). In autumn 2004, the EU started negotiations on a visa facilitation agreement (VFA) envisaging a simplified regime of visa issue for certain groups of travellers with Russia and a year after with Ukraine. A VFA was offered as a reward for a readmission agreement through which the EU member states wanted to control illegal migration but which was resisted by the neighbouring countries who feared its negative consequences (Trauner & Kruse 2008: 415). Afterwards, other neighbouring countries (the Western Balkans and Moldova) were offered to conclude a package of a readmission agreement and a visa facilitation agreement (ibidem). The Commission further included an offer of visa facilitation with the EU neighbours in the ENP design as part of cooperation on home affairs (European Commission 2004; European Commission 2006a).
At the same time, the EU’s eastern neighbours were asking for more than visa facilitation. They wanted the EU to grant them a visa-free regime. In 2005, Ukraine and Georgia abolished visas for EU citizens, and Moldova did the same in 2007, hoping that such an asymmetric step would invite the EU to respond with reciprocity. Russia kept
visas for EU citizens but the parties established a dialogue to examine conditions for visa-free travel as a long-term perspective in 2007. The EU VFAs signed with the East European countries recognised the introduction of a visa-free travel regime for their citizens as a long term perspective.
Whereas VFAs with Ukraine, Moldova and Western Balkan countries entered into force on 1 January 2008, soon afterwards the Western Balkans countries were offered visa dialogues leading to abolition of visa regimes. The EU used visa policy as a foreign policy instrument to give a new impetus to the creeping enlargement process (Renner & Trauner 2009; Trauner 2009). By the end of 2010, the EU abolished visas with all Western Balkan countries except Kosovo.
After the VFA entered into force, Ukraine asked for a visa liberalisation dialogue arguing that this was the path followed with the Western Balkan countries. In September 2008, the EU launched a visa dialogue with Ukraine, but it did not offer Ukraine a Roadmap for visa liberalisation which would outline reforms necessary for abolishment of the visa regime as it had granted to the Western Balkan countries.
While EU-Russia visa dialogue took a different path (Hernández i Sagrera & Potemkina 2013), the EU adopted a regional approach to visa liberalisation with the Eastern neighbours covered by the EaP initiative launched in 2008. The European Commission (2008: 6) envisaged that for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine “[v]isa policy would follow a phased approach, leading to visa liberalisation under specific conditions and with accompanying measures, including financial assistance for our partners”. The phases included visa facilitation as a first step; revision of existing VFAs introducing additional facilitations, e.g waiving the visa fee for all citizens; a coordinated plan to improve member states’ consular coverage; and “[o]nce
visa facilitation and readmission agreements are effectively implemented, open dialogues on visa-free travel with all cooperating partners. Dialogues would establish roadmaps leading to visa waiver, dealing with four main blocks of issues: document security; fight against irregular migration, including readmission; public order issues; and external relation issues, including human rights of migrants and other vulnerable groups” (ibidem).
The EaP Prague Summit Declaration in May 2009 confirmed full visa liberalisation as a long term goal for all the EaP countries. In November 2010, Ukraine as the first EaP country received an Action Plan on Visa Liberalisation (VLAP). In June 2010, Moldova-EU visa dialogue was launched and half a year later, in January 2011, Moldova become the second EaP country to receive the VLAP from the EU. Parallel to visa liberalisation, the EU also reviewed and amended the VFAs with Ukraine and Moldova, facilitating visa issuance for more categories of citizens. Georgia was the third EaP country to sign the VFA in June 2010 and to receive a visa dialogue with the EU in June 2012 and a VLAP in February 2013. The EU has concluded the VFAs with Armenia and Azerbaijan and negotiates such an agreement with Belarus.
The VLAPs require that EaP countries implement a wide range of reforms, from improving security of travel documents and effective migration management to fighting against organised crime and corruption and protecting minorities. The EaP countries have to meet up to sixty benchmarks. By conditioning a visa-free regime on the success of domestic reforms, the EU uses its visa policy as a tool to push for policy change in the EaP countries that goes beyond migration control and border management.
Unlike in the case of the Western Balkans, the road of Eastern European countries towards visa-free travel to Europe has been bumpier. There is less haste on the EU side.
First, these countries do not have an accession prospect. Second, having experienced negative consequences of visa-free travel with the Western Balkan countries, the EU has introduced a more complicated process of visa liberalisation (Trauner & Manigrassi 2014; Hernández i Sagrera 2013). The VLAP has envisaged a more gradual, two-staged process in which adoption of legislation would be followed by implementation. There are also more specific and further reaching requirements on the adoption of reforms than in the case of the Western Balkan countries (Hernández i Sagrera 2013). This was done to ensure more rigorous checks of reform quality and provide the member states which are sensitive to the opening of EU borders further to the East with more control over the evaluation of reform process on the ground. In addition, upon the insistence of a migration-wary member state, an additional check has been introduced: the European Commission has to provide an assessment of migratory and security risks of future visa- free travel. As a result, all these measures slow down the process of visa liberalisation. In November 2013, the Commission concluded in its fifth progress report on the implementation of the VLAP by Moldova that the country had fulfilled all the benchmarks and initiated the change of the Council Regulation 539/2001 to transfer Moldova onto the list of third countries whose nationals are exempt from visa requirement. In March 2014, three years after it had been granted a VLAP, Moldova was transferred to the ‘white’ visa list and since 28 April 2014 Moldovan citizens with biometric passports travelling to the Schengen countries for period up to 90 days do not need to possess a visa. By September 2014, over 200,000 Moldovan citizens had benefited from this possibility (European Commission & High Representative 2015). The EU decided to graduate Ukraine to the second stage of VLAP in June 2014, after the Commission and the Council had positively evaluated the progress in adopting the
legislation. Soon afterwards, in November 2014, Georgia caught up with Ukraine being transferred to the second stage of the VLAP too. In May 2015, the Commission issued the next wave of progress reports on Ukraine and Georgia, however, none of the countries had fulfilled all the benchmarks.
This case study examines interest groups’ involvement and influence on EU visa policy towards the Eastern neighbours, looking at the two distinct but closely intertwined processes: visa facilitation as the process of concluding, implementing and reviewing VFAs with Ukraine and Moldova and visa liberalisation as a policy process leading to abolishment of visa requirements. The next section will overview the policy environment in which interest groups operate.