Narrow Circle
Why don't people fly to Europe like birds - without visas? This great Russian dream, clothed by Ostrovsky's heroine in the form of a rhetorical question, corrected and supplemented in the exhausting queues of Schengen consulates, will partly come true by the beginning of summer. True, so far only for Russian diplomats, some politicians and officials, who will no longer need visas for trips to the Schengen area countries.
In the coming days, the EU Council of Ministers will consider a corresponding agreement between Russia and European countries (except Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom), which also provides for simplifying the issuance of short-term visas to some other, less privileged categories of citizens. Among the lucky ones are close relatives of citizens of EU countries, businessmen, members of official delegations, students, participants in scientific, cultural and sporting events, journalists, persons visiting military and civilian graves, drivers of international freight and passenger transport. According to the head of the European Commission's representation in Moscow, Mark Franco, the ratification procedure of the agreement by the EU Council of Ministers is to a certain extent 'administrative in nature', so it's practically in the bag. The document, according to Itogi, will come into force in May-June.
What exactly does the simplification of the Schengen visa procedure consist of? For businessmen, for example, it will be enough to present an invitation from a legal entity or individual. For journalists, they only need to present a work ID and a letter from the editor-in-chief about the relevant assignment. Citizens whose relatives are buried in a European country will be able to get a visa at any time on the basis of certificates of this fact. Athletes going to competitions, as well as scientists as part of scientific delegations, will receive visas automatically. And for international carriers (locomotive crews, long-haul truck drivers and other transport service workers), so-called multi-visas are provided - multiple-entry visas with a maximum term of five years.
In other words, all these citizens will be able to forget about the exhausting collection of various documents confirming their solvency (photocopy of a credit card, bank statements or traveler's checks at the rate of €50 per day of stay), certificates from work indicating position and salary, air tickets and so on, and so on.
But for ordinary tourists, who make up the lion's share of travelers, everything will remain as before. True, for them a maximum Schengen visa fee of €35 has been set and a consolation prize in the form of officials' statements that the next step is a visa-free regime with the EU. It must be said that one of the main technical obstacles to such happiness has been practically eliminated: simultaneously with the agreement on facilitating the visa regime, the agreement on readmission of illegal migrants, which the Europeans had been seeking, will also come into force. Now the main thing is to solve the problem of weakly protected borders and, of course, the insufficiently high-tech passport. Alas, it will take many years to resolve these issues, but we want to travel freely right now.
Affected Citizens
Meanwhile, some of our compatriots and others in developed countries are entitled to bonuses, up to the granting of citizenship, by right of blood. This is not about the possibility of moving to the historical homeland of Germans, Jews or Greeks - everyone knows about this, moreover, those who wished have already left, and some have even returned. It is about hospitality towards representatives of 'non-titular' nations. And there are many options here.
Perhaps the most exotic is to prove that you are a representative of the Gurkha people. Two and a half years ago, the English authorities granted this small Nepalese tribe the right to settle in foggy Albion. The British Crown made friends with the Gurkhas about two centuries ago, during the conquest of India. They served as soldiers in the British colonial army all over the world, while receiving significantly less than British soldiers. Now, apparently, they have been rewarded not only for their blameless service, but also as compensation for chronic underpayment. However, such a gesture will not significantly affect the ethnographic statistics of Great Britain: the number of representatives of the Gurkha tribe in its army today does not exceed 3.5 thousand people.
Meanwhile, the sense of guilt of some states towards others has sometimes substantially adjusted their national composition. This factor was the notorious colonial guilt complex of fallen empires. Largely due to the paternalistic policy of former empires towards their former 'stepchildren', titular nations and guest ethnic groups (along with relic ethnic groups) have almost equaled in numbers (in some countries they are represented in a ratio of 60 to 40%). The only exception was Japan, where the main ethnic group, the Japanese - 'nihonjin', accounts for more than 98.7% of the total population.
For example, the Netherlands issued Dutch passports to residents of its former possessions (Indonesia, Suriname and the Antilles) immediately after they declared independence. Great Britain automatically granted its citizenship to a citizen of a former colony until the beginning of the 1980s. And today, any native of former British territories has the right to become an applicant for such and subsequently obtain British citizenship, even if he has not lived a day in England. Residents of the countries of the British Commonwealth (Australia, India, Pakistan, many African countries, Canada) also enjoy special rights - their citizens have the status of foreigners, but when entering England, with rare exceptions, they do not need a visa. And since May 2002, a law has come into force according to which British citizenship will be granted to all citizens of the 14 remaining overseas territories of the crown (mostly islands in the Atlantic Ocean).
Madrid and Lisbon are following a similar course, having significantly eased the procedure for granting citizenship to residents of their former possessions. For example, the mandatory residency period in Spain has been reduced from seven to two years. Passports from former Spanish colonies also allow visa-free entry to the former metropolis, and thus to any country in the Schengen area. As for Paris, it still automatically grants citizenship to residents of Algeria, though not all, but only descendants of supporters of the Gaullist regime.
Regarding "descendants" in general, it's a special matter. For instance, Russian Vladimir Gusinsky recently became a subject of the Spanish crown. The basis for obtaining new citizenship was the fact that the former oligarch is allegedly a descendant of Sephardic Jews. And there are many such cases. The fact is that at one time, Spanish King Juan Carlos promised to grant citizenship to the descendants of Jews who settled in the Pyrenees after the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in the 6th century BCE (the term "Sephardic" comes from the Hebrew name for Spain, Sefarad). At the end of the 15th century, all Jews who refused to convert to Christianity were expelled from Spain. And in the 16th century, the remaining "conversos" were persecuted by the Inquisition. Granting citizenship to the descendants of Sephardic Jews became a sign of atonement for the past sins of the Spanish crown. Incidentally, the philosophers Spinoza and Montaigne, the founder of political economy David Ricardo, British Prime Minister Disraeli, and dictator Franco — all are descendants of converted Sephardic Jews.
To clarify: after the persecution by the Spanish Inquisition, Sephardic Jews dispersed around the world. But cases of granting citizenship based on "Sephardic" lineage are very rare: proving a blood tie to victims of the medieval Inquisition is extremely difficult.
Japan is a different matter. Natives of former Japanese colonies who lived in the Land of the Rising Sun before the end of World War II, their children and grandchildren, have permanent resident status. There are about 520,000 such people in Japan. However, they are not granted voting rights, and the procedure for obtaining citizenship takes about a year.
Germany has written its own chapter in the saga of guilt, recognizing historical responsibility for the sins of the Third Reich. Over the past ten years, as a result of the virtually unrestricted admission of Jews from the former USSR, the diaspora has grown from about 29,000 to 200,000. Unlike ethnic German resettlers, Jewish migrants do not have the right to automatic German citizenship — they can apply for it after living in the country for at least seven years. But all this time, they enjoy the status of "continental refugee," the most protected both legally and economically of any status that non-citizens can have in Germany.
For those who have not managed to find in their ancestry any Sephardic Jews, Gurkhas, or residents of some ex-colony, the only hope is our diplomats. However, there is another chance. Americans, for example, provide visa concessions to Russian Eskimos and Itelmens on the grounds that they are representatives of ethnic groups, part of which live in the United States. So it is not excluded that sooner or later visas will be abolished altogether: after all, we are all relatives. By Adam and Eve.