EU turns the screws on Canada over visas
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PrintPlanning a European vacation next year? You may need a visa.
The Hill Times Photo: Jake Wright
EU Ambassador Marie-Anne Coninsx at a Dec. 8, 2015 Economic Club of Canada conference.
Published: Wednesday, 01/27/2016 12:00 am EST
The European Union is ratcheting up pressure on the Canadian government to scrap visa requirements on its citizens or have visas slapped on Canadians visiting much of Europe.
If by April 12 Canada doesn’t lift its visa requirement on citizens of Romania and Bulgaria, the only two remaining EU members without visa-free access to Canada, the EU could begin a process to require all Canadians to get a visa before entering the Schengen Area. This area has 26 members, including most EU countries (not the United Kingdom and Ireland) and four non-EU countries (Iceland, Switzerland, Norway and Liechtenstein).
Canada’s in the EU bad books because of so-called “non-reciprocity”: while Canadians now get visa-free access to the EU, citizens of EU member states Romania and Bulgaria still have to get a visa before entering Canada. The United States is also in danger of facing EU visas after April because it has visa restrictions on several EU countries.
This spring will mark the end of two years of talks between Canada and the EU meant to sort out visa-free access. If the deadline comes and goes without change, Canadians could be slapped with visas for a year. But that would need the okay of the European Union’s elected legislative assembly, the European Parliament, and the Council of the EU, government ministers from all EU member states.
“The visa requirement would enter into force only if no objection has been expressed either by the [Parliament] (absolute majority) or the Council (QMV - qualified majority) within a period of four months of notification of that act to them by the Commission,” wrote EU Delegation press officer Diodora Bucur in an emailed response.
“We certainly hope to get some results before reaching that point,” said Romanian Minister-Counsellor Adrian Ligor in a Jan. 18 phone interview.
“Our interest is to lift the visas for the Romanian citizens, not to create problems in the relations between the EU and Canada. But for this, we need the co-operation of the Canadian government also.”
He expected the Romanian ambassador to discuss the issue with Canada’s foreign and immigration ministers next month.
“The major problem I see here...is that we are running out of time for [a] positive solution,” wrote Bulgarian Ambassador Nikolay Milkov in an emailed response. Getting to the point of imposing visas on Canadians, he said “may be a very negative complication that we strive to avoid.”
He suggested “dialogue should resume with the understanding that major political priorities and sensibilities are at stake and that they go far beyond the bilateral aspects of a standard visa dialogue.”
Ms. Bucur said that in the months ahead, all sides would boost their efforts to “reach tangible and concrete progress.” A November progress report from the EU Commission, however, did not sound a positive note. The body, which implements EU policies, determined that “it is unlikely that all non-reciprocity cases involving Canada and the US will be resolved by April 2016.”
Observers doubtful
Despite all this, Canadians shouldn’t be too worried about having to get a visa before a European vacation next year, suggested a couple observers.
If it comes down to a vote in the European Parliament and Council, solidarity among the EU’s 28 member states may crack.
While most parliamentarians may be willing to go along with it in the interest of European solidarity, it will be interesting to watch what happens in the Council, said Achim Hurrelmann, director of the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at Carleton University.
“Here, the member states are representing their own national interests. And here the question is how much solidarity will there be with Romania and Bulgaria, in the Canadian case. Will the other 26 member states be willing to offend Canada, if you will—and the United States is in the same pot, so an even bigger player—just in order to show solidarity to Romania and Bulgaria?”
It’s hard to predict, but he said he would be surprised if the visa requirements were imposed against major partners in the Western alliance.
“I believe that there is no will on the part of the EU to impose visa requirements on Canadians even for a year,” said Annalisa Meloni, a senior lecturer with the University of East London focused on EU border policy.
“I believe Romania and Bulgaria are expected by the EU to sort out their 'push' factors. Unfortunately, there is some resentment in the EU, too, in relation to migration flows from these countries.”
Such migration flows are one of the reasons the UK is trying to renegotiate the terms of its EU membership, she said. The future of a passport-free Schengen area itself is under threat, given the influx of refugees into the EU in recent months.
Why visas remain on Bulgaria, Romania
Romania and Bulgaria fall short on two key Canadian criteria for lifting the visas, the progress report indicated. The average visa refusal rate for both is above 15 per cent for 2012 to 2014, well above the threshold of four per cent over three years.
Both are also above, though closer to, the immigration violation rate threshold. Bulgaria’s average is just over five per cent, while Romania’s is 3.9 per cent for 2012-14, though the Canadian standard is an average of less than three per cent over three years.
An earlier progress report indicated that these thresholds are not fixed in law, so there’s some political wiggle room, but not when the differences between the target and reality are too big. It cited Canadian officials as saying most visa refusals stem from doubts about the real purpose of travel and will to return, given the applicants’ economic situation.
Canadian authorities have also sought updates on Romanian and Bulgarian efforts to fight corruption, reform their judiciaries and integrate the minority Roma ethnic group. While refugee flows also used to be thought as a barrier to visa-free travel, it appears not to be now as only a trickle of asylum seekers from these countries are coming to Canada.
The Europeans have stressed that EU and Canadian leaders meeting in September 2014 agreed to visa-free travel for all their citizens as soon as possible.
Canada takes a bunch of factors into account when deciding whether to lift a visa, including human rights, bilateral ties and border management.
“At present, Canada is not reviewing temporary resident visa requirements for additional countries,” said Michel Cimpaye, a spokesperson for Canada’s immigration department, in an emailed response to questions.
“Visa reviews are conducted where there is evidence, following close monitoring, of a shift in migration trends and country conditions that could indicate a change in policy is warranted.”
In a bid to help ease the tension, Canada last year announced that Romanian and Bulgarian travellers could soon enter Canada without a visa if they’d held a Canadian visa in the last decade or have a current non-immigrant US visa. They would only need to be screened through an online security system for visa-free travellers to be rolled out in March 2016.
EU Ambassador Marie-Anne Coninsx said the exception would mainly benefit business people, which is important and helpful, but not a solution. She and Romanian and Bulgarian officials indicated their ultimate goal is full visa-free travel for everyone.
If Mexico, why not Romania and Bulgaria?
Canada’s former Conservative government under Stephen Harper had decided to extend the same visa exception to Mexicans with past Canadian or current US visas, though Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took that one step further in his election campaign last fall, promising to lift the visa on all Mexicans “immediately.”
That yet-to-be-filled promise has put a big smile on the face of Mexican officials.
“I think that we cannot have a double standard,” said Ambassador Coninsx, speaking in an interview marking 2016 as the 40th anniversary of the EU’s diplomatic representation in Canada.
If the Mexicans met all the Canadian conditions for visa-free travel, she said, there’s no problem.
“But in case, for example that in the case of Mexico that it will be a political decision to lift the visa, and it will be not a political decision for Romania, I think this will be difficult for us.”
CETA ratification tie-in
Without visa-free travel, Romania’s Mr. Ligor expected it could be difficult for the Romanian parliament to agree to the Canada-Europe free trade deal known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.
Romania and Bulgaria could hamper CETA’s ratification process, Ms. Coninsx suggested.
But there’s still months to go before that stage. Though the two sides wrapped up formal negotiations in 2014, they’ve been stuck for more than a year at the legal vetting stage, unable to move on to ratify the deal.
Another EU trade deal being negotiated with the United States helped kick up a storm about CETA and the merits of the EU’s investment protection system, which allows businesses to sue governments through international arbitration for perceived unfair treatment. Protests in EU powerhouses like Germany led the 28-member bloc to rethink its investor-state arbitration system and some critics have said the rules in CETA don’t meet the new standards.
The EU insists it doesn’t want to reopen the text, but it’s seeking, in the words of a December speech by its trade commissioner, “to do some fine-tuning” to “allow us to introduce some targeted improvements, notably on dispute resolution, to better align CETA to our new approach.”
Canadian chief negotiator Steve Verheul has said the new Liberal government is open to working with the EU on its proposed changes, but wants to move toward implementing the deal as quick as possible.
“Our experts said there are all kinds of options which are possible within the existing text. I really cannot give you some of the possibilities. But having followed the dossier close and knowing there are some options, I’m confident that they will find a solution that will be suitable for both [sides],” said Ms. Coninsx.
She said the hope is to transmit the final translated text to EU members before the summer. The deal would require approval by the European Parliament, Council and possibly member-state national legislatures.
Even if Romanian and Bulgarian legislators hold up ratification in their own legislatures, areas of exclusive EU competence, which Ms. Coninsx told the Canadian Press means more than 90 per cent, could enter into force earlier.
kshane@embassynews.ca
@kristenshane1
EU-Canada at 40: Busy year ahead
The European Union is planning a big year ahead to mark its 40th anniversary of diplomatic representation in Canada.
It officially opened its diplomatic mission in Ottawa and signed a framework agreement on commercial and economic co-operation with Canada in 1976.
To mark the anniversary year, the delegation plans to host four conferences, on the Arctic, energy, security and defence as well as the newly negotiated bilateral political roadmap called the Strategic Partnership Agreement. The text is finished, though it’s yet to be ratified.
In an interview marking the anniversary year, EU Ambassador Marie-Anne Coninsx said she hopes for “early implementation” of the SPA, and to hammer out the final translated text of the long-awaited trade deal known as CETA by summer.
Besides that, she said with the new Liberal government in Canada, there are new opportunities for co-operation on issues like climate change and multilateralism. She expects Canada and the EU to work closely this year on counterterrorism, Ukraine and energy.
She expects a ministerial meeting on energy to take place, with the EU commissioner to visit Canada, before June. They will discuss topics such as collaboration in the gas sector, help for Ukraine and commitments toward meeting climate change goals set out at a global summit in Paris last year.
Three parliamentary delegations, on trade, transport and bilateral relations, are set to visit Canada this year, said the ambassador. And EU heads of mission are preparing for their own trip to meet provincial officials in Newfoundland and Labrador later this year.
Before the end of 2016, she said she hopes to see a Canada-EU summit attended by the leaders of both sides in Brussels. These summits are typically held every couple years or so. The last one was in Canada in September 2014.
The Source:http://www.embassynews.ca/news/2016/01/27/eu-turns-the-screws-on-canada-over-visas/48165
Comment:
"Let the
CETA visa games begin
Bulgaria
and Rumania are now linking visas and CETA. It’s only a matter of time before
other European counties do the same.
Even after
CETA is signed, visas will be a never ending source of unnecessary conflict.
The bottom
line problem is that Ottawa encourages a dysfunctional trades worker visa
process. Rather than simply fix the problem, Ottawa would rather go through
decades of useless prattling about the “integrity of the system”.
Has Ottawa
actually considered how stupid we look when we encourage Canadian employers to
exploit hundreds of thousands of illegal European workers and then we talk
about there being “integrity” in the system? Do we expect Europeans to keep a
straight face when we claim that there is “integrity” in our exploitation?
Richard Boraks, January 27 2016
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