Results of the study on visa policies of the Republic of Poland and Czech Republic presented in Lviv
The event was attended by Andriy Lepak, head of Lviv Law Society, regional coordinator of the civic initiative “Europe without Barriers” in Lviv, officials from the General Consulate of Poland, representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lviv, as well as officials of the Department of International Cooperation (Lviv Oblast State Administration) and local mass media.
Participants of the press-conference presented the results of the long-term monitoring of Schengen visas issuance by consulates of the Republic of Poland and Czech Republic, attitude of Ukrainian citizens and their evaluation of the accessibility of visa obtaining procedure. Apart from this, experts provided recommendations and proposals to improve the performance of consular offices, and possibilities to implement the right to freedom of movement.
The fieldwork of the study took place in July-August 2010 near the premises of consular offices of the Republic of Poland and Czech Republic located in Lviv. This research has been conducted for the fourth time in the frames of the all-Ukrainian initiative “Europe without Barriers”.
“Dynamics of the number of visa refusals of 3,3% corresponds to the official data of the Polish Consulate, 3%; while 11,7% of refusals in the Czech Consulate do not correspond to the official 6%, declared by the Consulate,” Andriy Lepak noted.
The majority of respondents positively estimated the overall atmosphere and attitude of the consular staff to them, their behavior and readiness to help them. According to respondents, consulates generally comply with the agreement on visa facilitation, when issuing free visas in 25% of cases in the Polish consulate, and in 43,3% – in the Czech consulate. The survey has not noted reduction in the number of documents that are required from applicants. According to experts, the Agreement between the European Community and Ukraine on visa facilitation is, in general, satisfactorily performed by consulates in Lviv (Articles 4, 5, 6 and 7).
Andriy Lepak emphasized that consular institutions should consider conducting awareness raising campaigns to inform public about the rules and procedures for obtaining visas, relevant agreements, and provide clear written arguments when refusing a visa, as well as mentioning the procedure of appeal.
In this regard, Andrzej Drozd, Deputy Consul General of Poland in Lviv, said that there is a consul on duty in the embassy every day and he/she can provide oral explanations to everyone. “We try to justify our refusal directly to a person so that one could clarify all inaccuracies and update documents for a visa,” he added.
In addition, public experts recommend consular offices to implement alternative ways of record for document submission, practice more actively official investigations by the facts of possible abuse during visa obtaining procedure, landscape territory around the consulates together with local authorities and improve the content on the official consulates’ websites.
Contacts: tov.lviv@gmail.com, andriy_lepak@ukr.net tel.: + 38 (032) 236 70 49.
Source and photo: Lviv Law Society
This project is being implemented in the frames of the civic initiative “Europe without Barriers”, with the support of the European Program of the International Renaissance Foundation.
