Busuttil in new push for US visa waiver

Simon Busuttil, the Nationalist member of the European Parliament, yesterday presented a parliamentary question signed by 50 MEPs calling on the European Commission to press the US to waive its visa requirement for the citizens of new EU member states.

The signatories all hail from these states, Malta being one of them. Dr Busuttil also asked for a debate to be held in Parliament over this issue.

Sources close to the EP said that following the submission of such a strongly supported request, the issue will now be put on the agenda of the EP and a debate will be held in the chamber.

Dr Busuttil told The Times he was overwhelmed by the response to his initiative.

"In a matter of three days, almost all MEPs from the 10 affected countries in my political group, the European People's Party, rallied to support this initiative."

In their submission, the MEPs denounce the prevailing situation as discriminatory since the visa requirement is imposed on 10 out of 25 EU countries, thereby creating an unjustified distinction between EU citizens coming from different EU countries. Dr Busuttil said that "as it is, the visa is already an expensive and time-consuming burden. Imposing it on 10 EU countries out of 25 simply makes it worse. People are right to expect to be treated equally as citizens from other EU countries. That is simply what we want." The MEPs also noted that despite the Commission's efforts to convince the US authorities to remove the visa, no progress has been achieved.

Two-and-a-half years after the last EU enlargement, the US is still refusing to lift the visa requirement on citizens from the new member states, with the exception of Slovenia, insisting that these states still do not fulfill all of the necessary criteria imposed by the US Congress. This opinion is not shared by the new member states and Greece, which is the only "old" member state still being excluded.

The affected member states are pushing the Commission to introduce counter-sanctions by re-introducing visa requirements for all US citizens visiting Europe. The Commission is responsible for conducting talks with the US on this issue.

According to the rules underpinning the US Visa Waiver Programme, to qualify for a US visa-free regime, the new EU member states and Greece are required to offer reciprocal privileges to US citizens and must have had a non-immigrant refusal rate of less than three per cent.

They must also certify that the country issues machine-readable passports, have a programme to incorporate biometric identifiers into the passports and certify that it reports the theft of blank passports on a timely basis to the US authorities.

The Maltese government has insisted that it sees no reason why Malta should not be included in this agreement as all the requirements have been meet.