ALERT: European Commission Rejects U.S. Visa Travel Recommendation (May 4, 2017)

May 4, 2017

The European Union (EU) has determined that citizens of the United States will not have to obtain visas for European travel.

The New York Times reports:

Right now, United States citizens generally do not need visas to enter any of the union’s 28 member nations, but citizens of five of those nations — Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania — need visas to travel to the United States.

That disparity has been the subject of a diplomatic dispute between Washington and Brussels that threatened to escalate in March, when the European Parliament asked the commission, the bloc’s executive body, to retaliate by ending visa-free travel to Europe for Americans.

The Parliament’s resolution was nonbinding, and the commission said Tuesday that it would not comply with the request. Doing so “would be counterproductive at this moment, and would not serve the objective of achieving visa-free travel for all E.U. citizens,” it said.

The commission added, “On the contrary, it would immediately result in retaliatory measures by the U.S., leading to the visa requirement being imposed on all E.U. citizens.”

NPR further states:

Explaining its decision, the European Commission said Tuesday that in recent months, “contacts with U.S. interlocutors at the political and technical level were intensified,” and the American government has committed to changing its policies once the five countries meet legal requirements.

Work on an agreement will continue at the EU-U.S. Justice and Home Affairs Ministerial Meeting that’s set for June of this year, the commission says.

The European Union “will always choose engagement, commitment and patient diplomacy over unilateral retaliation,” the body’s commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos said via Twitter today.”

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