EASIER ACCESS TO SCHENGEN VISA

A meeting regarding the “Visa Issue between Turkey and EU” which was organized by Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission was held in Strasbourg with the participation of Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator, Egemen Bagis and Cecilia Malsmtrom, EU Commissioner in charge of Home Affairs.At the meeting, Ms. Malsmtrom said that ‘a roadmap which will completely remove the visa requirements’ would be prepared and in the meantime another step would be taken in order to facilitate the visa procedures for Turkish citizens.

At the press release which was held after the meeting, Minister Bagis said, “Cecilia Malsmtrom, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs has promised to minimize the difficulties encountered by our citizens with respect to the visa procedures as of autumn.” Minister Bagis continued as follows:

“Ms. Malsmtrom said that for the purpose of reducing the visa fees, they would take steps to provide long term visas consisting of multiple entries; and in some cases to remove the obligation completely; to have established visa centers throughout Turkey in order to prevent the citizens travelling to Ankara or Istanbul to receive their visas; to make it possible to receive the visas via institutions instead of personally getting them; and to facilitate the visa requirements for certain occupational groups, students, sportsmen, artists and especially for the businessmen. Once a step is taken in this direction, we will share some of the developments concerning our target of lifting visas completely. We hope these steps to be beneficial for Turkish nation and state.”

Implying that the process shall be initiated in autumn, Bagis said “It must be initiated as soon as possible. From now on, we will follow this issue”. Egemen Bagis described this initiative as the “light at the end of the tunnel”. Pointing out that Turkey is the only country which continues the membership negotiations with the EU without being able to benefit from the visa exemption, Minister Bagis said, “All we ask for is to put an end to this discrimination and to be treated equally with other candidate countries”.

Reminding that Europe has started to apply visa after the 1980 Turkish coup d’état, Bagis expressed that the visa regime should be eased because Turkey has a voice in the world as an economic and political power since 2002.

Source: AA