EU: Common visa list (feature)
01 September 1995
A new common visa list has been drawn up for all EU member states, defining which countries' nationals require visas for admission to any EU state. The list contains 98 countries and three entities not recognised as countries by all member states (Taiwan, Macedonia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). Bosnia is not on the list, but Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, China, Sri Lanka, Turkey and other countries where there are severe conflicts, civil wars or grave human rights violations are. The effect is to make it virtually impossible for refugees from those countries to seek refuge in the EU, for without visas they cannot board flights or ships taking them to the EU.
The new list agreed at the meeting of the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers on 25 September creates two separate lists in the EU, plus national visa lists. The Schengen visa list of 129 countries and the EU list of 101 countries. Officials say this is going to create utter confusion if a visitor with a visa chooses to visit Schengen countries not on the EU list. Border officials and police will not know whether to allow entry or not, particularly if a visitor is passing from an EU country through a Schengen country on the way to another EU country. For example, a visitor could land in Denmark and want to travel through Germany and France on the way to the UK or Ireland or to Italy or Greece (neither of which have ratified the Schengen Agreement yet).
A Schengen official said:
"The EU now has three categories - three lists of countries. The first for people from places such as Switzerland who do not require a visa in any EU country, the second is the main list of places such as Iraq and Libya from which everyone reuires a visa, and the third includes countries such as Canada whose citizens need a visa to visit Spain, but can travel freely in the rest of the EU". European, 28.9.95.
Two of the six countries in central and eastern Europe, Romania and Bulgaria, are on the EU list. The Bulgarian Justice Minister, Mladen Chervenyakov, said the decision was "unjust". At the formal session of the EU Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers and their counterparts from the six countries on 25 September Mr Chervenyakov insisted that his full statement of objection was read out to the whole meeting. The Romanian government expressed similar views as this leaves their citizens in the position that Germany, which does not require Romanians to hold visas to enter, will have to conform to EU policy.
The UK Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in July that: "a Common Visa list is
not the same thing as a common visa policy... We will be free to impose visa regimes on states not on the common visa list" (emphasis in original).
Council Regulation (EC) no 2317/95 of 25 September 1995, determining the third countries whose national must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders of the Member States, Official Journal, no L 234, 3.10.95, pages 1-3.