The Consulates of Belgium, Netherlands, and Spain are the most “demanding” when issuing visas
The Consulates of Belgium, Netherlands, and Spain in Ukraine require the largest number of additional documents when issuing visas. The group of “demanding” Consulates includes Italian, Portugal, and French Consulates. These are the results of the fifth wave of independent monitoring on issuing visas by the EU Consular offices to Ukrainian citizens. The monitoring was organized by the Europe Without Barriers Public Initiative with the support of the European Program of the International Renaissance Foundation.
Consulates started to use the practice of return report to the Consulate after applicant return from the EU and Schengen area. The diplomatic missions of Spain and Germany have mainly used such practice.
For more than a half of respondents the visa application procedure took from 7 to 10 days. The most precise in meeting of deadlines in visa application procedure are the Lithuanian and Swedish Consulates.
There was marginal decrease in the number of free of charge visas: from 31% in the last year to 28% in this year. The vast majority of applicants paid for a visa – 71%. The smallest amount of free visas was issued by the Consulates of the Netherlands (3,3%), Spain (6,7%) and Denmark (1,7%). The largest amount was issued by the Austrian (43,3%), Slovak (42,5%), CzechRepublic (41,7%) and German (40%) Consulates.
There was a slow increase in the share of long-term multiple visas valid for three to six months – about 11,6% (last year – 9%). The total share of visas, valid for over 6 months to one year, has increased from 13% to 17,3%, the lion’s share of which are the “one year” visas.
The vast majority of applicants receive short-term visas (category “C”) for a single visit. The greatest number of visas of category “D” is the national visas for long term stay and they are issued by the consular offices of Poland and Estonia, while the proportion of visas is about 7% and it is slightly decreased in comparison to the year 2010.
The consulates of Hungary, Poland and Slovakia issued the largest amount of multiple-entry visas. The first place on issuing the long-term visas is occupied by the Hungarian consular service primarily due to liberal politics of the consulates located in Transcarpathia (total – 64%), followed by – Poland (54%) and Slovakia (48%). The smallest amount of multiple-entry visas was detected in the consulates of Lithuania (6,7%) and Greece (12,2%)
However, the half of multiple-entry visas still has a short validity: to three months, which indicates a failure of the EU Visa Code provisions by the consulates (Article 24, paragraph 2). This Article provides the issuance of long-term visa for 6 months or more. The visas valid for more than a year are still unavailable for Ukrainian citizens. The amount of such visas is less than one percent – 0,4%.
Europe Without Barriers Public Initiative
Iryna Sushko, iryna_sushko@ukr.net
Oksana Hyrych, oksana.ewb@gmail.com
(+38 044) 238 68 43
office_ewb@novisa.com.ua
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Goal of the European Program is to promote Ukraine’s European integration by providing financial and expert support to relevant civil society initiatives.
