Removal of visa to travel to Brazil

Raymond Coatsworth writes:

Some years ago, you wrote in The Times that Brazil had finally indicated it is willing to extend full reciprocity to EU countries, including Malta.

On September 2009, The Times again raised the question that, after five years since accession, it was time for Brazil to come in line with the agreement. Only a couple of months ago you yourself said our Foreign Affairs Minister has been piling pressure for this agreement to be solved soon.

Last August, Meusac News said: “Last week, the Commission adopted draft decisions for the signature and conclusion of an agreement.”

Who is guilty of this procrastination? Of all EU member states, Malta and three others are the only countries involved!

Who is playing games? If one is to be blacklisted, at least let us know why and then we can also remove our existing principle of reciprocity.

It is true that the removal of the visa requirement imposed on Maltese citizens to travel to Brazil has long been coming and has long been awaited. Several readers have written to me about this and I have already raised this matter in this column. The state of play is as follows:

In accordance with applicable EU law (Council Regulation [EC] No. 539/2001), Brazilian nationals can travel to all 27 EU countries for short stays without requiring a visa.

This should be reciprocated by Brazil. However, in reality, this country still requires a visa from the nationals of four member states, namely Estonia, Cyprus, Malta and Latvia to travel to its territory.

This means that whereas Brazilian citizens do not require a visa to come to Malta, Maltese citizens do require a visa to travel to Brazil. This is unjust and I have long pointed out this discrepancy and lack of reciprocity. Over the past years, I have repeatedly raised this matter with the European Commission, especially through parliamentary questions. Likewise, the Maltese government, through our Foreign Affairs Minister, has long pressed for the removal of this visa.

I am not aware of any specific reason for any procrastination in granting visa-free status to these four countries, including Malta. But I would exclude political reasons for this, let alone blackmail of any sort as the reader suggests.

However, the Commission did point out that, for some constitutional reason, apparently Brazil could not grant a visa waiver to these member states unilaterally and, therefore, it was necessary to conclude a visa waiver agreement to be ratified by its Parliament on a case-by-case basis. Indeed, Brazil has bilateral visa waiver agreements with all the EU member states, except with the four countries mentioned. These bilateral agreements differ from each other considerably as regards their scope of application (that is, as regards the categories of persons benefiting from the visa waiver).

Since the common EU visa policy is a competence of the European Union, in this area only the Union can negotiate and conclude a visa waiver agreement and not the individual member states. In any case, it is clear the EU has more clout to do so than individual countries, especially the smaller ones.

Therefore, a European approach has been adopted and one can imagine this takes time because it requires the agreement of different member states and different institutions. But it often takes less time than bilateral arrangements.

On April 18, 2008, the Council of Ministers adopted a decision authorising the Commission to open negotiations on the conclusion of a short-stay visa-waiver agreement between the EU and Brazil. The negotiations started on July 2, 2008 and have now been concluded. Indeed, the Commission has now finalised the agreement with Brazil.

This agreement has now come to the European Parliament for our consent.

The Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, in which I am a member, is responsible for this matter. As the person responsible for the largest political group, the EPP, in this committee, I have already appointed a colleague to work on this dossier as rapporteur. Work on this will be starting in the near future and I shall be personally following it through in order to make sure the Parliament grants its consent as soon as possible.

Once the consent is endorsed by the plenary of the European Parliament, it will only be a matter of a short time before the visa requirement for Maltese citizens to travel to Brazil will be lifted once and for all. It may be a matter of a few more months. But, at least, the process is now well underway and a conclusion is well in sight.

www.simonbusuttil.eu

Dr Busuttil is a Nationalist member of the European Parliament.