On September 10, 2010 Public initiative the "Europe without Barriers" and Center for Peace, Conversion and Foreign Policy of Ukraine supported by International Renaissance Foundation presented the publication of “The visa-free Europe for the Eastern Partnership countries: a way to achieve" dedicated to the strategy and tactical priorities of the Eastern Partnership countries’ bid for visa-free regime with the European Union.
On September 10, 2010 Public initiative the “Europe without Barriers” and Center for Peace, Conversion and Foreign Policy of Ukraine supported by International Renaissance Foundation presented the publication of “The visa-free Europe for the Eastern Partnership countries: a way to achieve” dedicated to the strategy and tactical priorities of the Eastern Partnership countries’ bid for visa-free regime with the European Union. In addition, the statistics of the EU visa issuance to the citizens of Ukraine and other states of the world in 2009 was presented for the first time in Ukraine.
The head of the “Europe without barriers” Iryna Sushko, speaking with an introduction, noted that an important condition for getting the high-quality analytical product and increase the professional expertise level was involvement of experienced foreign partners. Institutional cooperation was launched with such Western European think-tanks as the European Policy Centre (EPC), whose recommends are used by the European institutions and the European Stability Initiative (ESI), known by its extensive experience in expertise and advocacy of visa regime abolition for Western Balkan countries.
The senior manager of the European Program of the International Renaissance Foundation Dmytro Shulga noted that the Ukrainian civil society may be proud of those changes, which currently can be seen in the progress towards visa liberalization between Ukraine and the European Union, and he expressed hopes that the EU, in turn, will let Ukraine be “enjoyed” by the “roadmap” for visa-free regime to be given soon.
The leading expert of the “Europe without Barriers” Oleksandr Sushko said that successful negotiations on liberalization of visa regime with the EU requires a thorough study of all its phases, and roles played by individual institutions and the EU Member States.
According to the statistics of visa issuance of Schengen Agreement countries in 2009, as reported Sushko, Ukraine occupies the second place in the world (1,125,659 or 9.2% of all visas) having only Russia ahead (3,578,672 or 29.4 %). It is interesting that in Belarus, which takes the sixth place in overall rating (449.351 or 3.7%), the one Schengen visa was given to 21 persons, while in Ukraine and Russia this index is twice less – the one visa for 41-43 persons. Thus, despite the lack of Visa Facilitation Agreement and the higher price of the visa (60 euros, instead of 35) the average Belarusian goes to the EU twice as often as the average Ukrainian. The higher rates (the number of visas per capita) are also in Moldova – the one visa for 27-29 people, but it is necessary to consider that the majority of the visas are visas to Romania and Bulgaria, which do not belong to the Schengen area. Azerbaijan receives the smallest number of visas per capita among the Eastern Partnership countries.
The largest Schengen consulate in the world is the Consulate of Finland in St. Petersburg, which issued more than half a million visas in 2009. In Ukraine the championship belongs to the Consulate of Poland in Lviv (273.569 visas in 2009). In general, the Consulates of Poland in Ukraine have issued the 39.8% of all Schengen visas.
As the number of visa refusals, the level is about 4,6% of applications in Ukraine. In comparison, these indicators are 13.5% and 6.3% in Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The “champions” of refusals in Ukraine are the Consulate of Spain in Kyiv (14.7%), the consulate of Germany in Kyiv (10.9%), the consulates of Latvia (10.2%) and Belgium (9%). The low number of refusals (2-3%) the citizens of Ukraine have traditionally received in 2009 from the consulates of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Sweden, etc.
Summing up the report, Oleksandr Sushko focused his attention at Ukraine’s government policies indicating that Ukraine has recently made a step forward and two steps back on the way towards the visa-free regime with the EU. The progress, according to expert, is, particularly, the Law on Personal Data Protection, which is still imperfect, but extremely needed. The steps back, according to a leading expert of the “Europe without Barriers” is the government’s decision taken in June 2010 to issue 50 thousand of old-type passports, not compatible with ICAO standards (with the paper photo affixed) and the ultimate liquidation of National Migration Service (August 2010).
Nadia Kaydanovych, Evropeysky Prostir (European Space)
