The European Union has embarked on the path of a visa war against the United States and Canada, accusing these countries of failing to recognize the EU as a single political-economic entity. In Brussels's view, this attitude is manifested in the refusal of Ottawa and Washington to abolish visas for citizens of a number of Eastern European countries that joined the European Union in 2004. According to information leaked to European media, the European Commission has prepared proposals to introduce retaliatory visa restrictions for citizens of Canada and the United States.
The existing U.S. "blacklist" includes 10 states, and the Canadian list includes 7. Free entry to both the United States and Canada is not permitted for residents of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and the Baltic states. Since these countries joined the EU, they have abolished visas for Canadians and Americans in accordance with pan-European rules, but the overseas authorities have not made a corresponding gesture.
Negotiations to resolve the conflict dragged on for almost two years but did not produce any noticeable results. The Eastern Europeans were especially irritated by the fact that they had shown themselves to be the most loyal allies of the United States on the international stage, often acting to the detriment of the EU's common policy, yet continued to be perceived overseas as "second-class" states.
Brussels did not interfere in the conflict for a while, until the Czech Republic announced a month ago its intention to punish Canada by introducing visa requirements for citizens of the Maple Leaf Country. If that happened, the fragile European house would have cracked yet again: after all, the EU conducts a common visa policy. As a result, the problem of the "new Europeans" became a matter for the European Union.
"If the United States truly respects the EU as an allied entity, it should act accordingly when dealing with visa matters," said John Brighton, the EU representative in Washington, in an interview with the Financial Times.
Now the European Commission plans to "hit" Canadian diplomats. If these measures do not help, visas will be introduced for other categories of Canadians. The EU intends to formulate its policy toward the United States based on the results of the EU–U.S. summit, which will take place this month in Vienna. The European Union is more restrained in its dealings with Washington, not only because of fears of openly challenging the "superpower," but also because the United States has proposed a path of gradual exit from the visa crisis. Citizens of states seeking visa abolition must meet the "three percent" criterion. This means that among all visa applicants, the number of refusals should not exceed 3%. Ottawa, for its part, each time cited abstract "technical difficulties," refusing to acknowledge the existence of political obstacles.
However, the EU knows that the reasons are actually political. Eastern Europeans are being asked, first of all, to solve the problem of millions of Gypsies dreaming of moving away from states where they are subjected to discrimination. The Gypsy problem is most acute in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. There, Gypsies are beaten, not hired for jobs, and their compact places of residence are turned into ghettos separated from the rest of the world by concrete walls. When, after the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, Gypsies got the opportunity to travel, they began to leave in whole camps. Planes packed with Gypsies landed in Britain and Spain, and they even reached northern Finland. However, the largest Gypsy migrations headed to Canada, which was rightly considered a promised land for asylum seekers. In the mid-1990s, several thousand Czech and Slovak Gypsies sought asylum in Canada before Ottawa came to its senses and erected a visa wall in the path of millions of their compatriots.
"Since our accession to the EU, the situation has changed for the better," asserts Czech Ambassador to Canada Pavel Vosálik. "We are fulfilling all international obligations on the observance of human rights; the Czech authorities are cooperating closely with Canadian inspectors who come to our country." Indeed, the problem of Eastern European Gypsies, which gained worldwide fame due to their flight to the West, has today been partially solved. Municipal housing is being built for Gypsies, a quota system is being applied for hiring and education, and social benefits for Gypsy families have been increased. Nevertheless, the rich and tolerant United States and Canada remain a magnet for European nomads, and for now only the need to obtain visas prevents their final resettlement overseas.
Aleksey SMIRNOV.
Novye Izvestia