Polish and Czech visa procedures are onerous for Ukrainians
On November 26 a presentation was held in Lviv of the results of an independent study of the visa policies of the Consulates of Poland and the Czech Republic and the Polish visa application center in Lviv. The monitoring was done by the Lviv Legal Society as part of the Europe without Barriers initiative with support from the International Renaissance Foundation’s European Program.
As noted by Andriy Lepak, head of the Lviv Legal Society, the number of visa refusals has not changed much in the last 4-5 years: at the Polish Consulate it ranges around an acceptable level of 3%, while at the Czech Consulate it is 11.3%
Visa applicants and experts identified a number of problems with the visa process. One of the most important is the electronic registration system that instead of resolving the problem with real queues creates another problem – a big virtual queue.
As Andriy Lepak also noted, alarming are signs that consular staff and Ukrainian citizens are directly or indirectly involved in potential corrupt schemes, as was the case at the Polish Consulate in Lutsk.
Contacts:
Lviv Legal Society
tov.lviv@gmail.com
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The essential role of the European Program lies in promotion of Ukraine’s European integration, combining external pressure of the EU with the domestic one of the Ukrainian civil society, and thus contributing to promotion of open society values in Ukraine.
