Should we take the visa thing personel?

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EU to negotiate visa-free travel to US
7 hours ago
phantis.com
LUXEMBOURG (AFP) — EU nations agreed Friday to open negotiations as a bloc with Washington on visa-free US travel, after some eastern members sought their own bilateral deals.

EU interior ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, gave a mandate to the European Commission to negotiate the conditions for a deal allowing all member countries to participate in the US visa waiver programme.

Most older EU states are already part of the visa waiver scheme, but Greece and most of the 12 mainly ex-communist nations who have joined the bloc since 2004 are not.

Frustrated at the lack of progress in talks led by the commission, some of those countries left out of the programme have negotiated bilateral deals, much to Brussels' concern.

"We agreed that our common goal is to ensure that all member states are admitted in the visa waiver programme as soon as possible," European Commission Vice-President Jacques Barrot said.

Efforts to negotiate an EU-wide deal with the United States have stalled so far over questions about what information should be shared with US authorities as a condition for a deal.

"We are open to some demands, but we want reciprocity," French Interior Minister Michele Alliot Marie said.

The European Commission said on Thursday that the EU would not grant US authorities unfettered access to its police and security databases in order to secure visa-free access to the United States for its citizens.

The nations of Europe's Schengen border-free zone keep a database including information on stolen cars and people searched by police.

On other databases the European Union stores asylum seekers' fingerprints and has plans to do likewise for visa applicants.

The EU's executive arm has been concerned that countries concluding bilateral agreements would surrender more information about their citizens than allowed under EU rules, and it has threatened legal action if the states cross this line.

So far the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia and Malta have signed such bilateral deals with the United States.

"The commission continues to have concerns with certain aspects of these bilateral agreements and reserves the right to take action," it said in a statement.

Barrot said that while the commission had a clear mandate to lead talks on the bloc's behalf, member states also had "room to negotiate bilaterally" on issues falling outside of Brussels remit.

The ministers' decision does not concern Britain and Ireland as they do not participate in the EU's visa policies.

The commission's negotiating mandate will also allow the commission to deal with Washington concerning the planned US Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA), which the EU fears could act like a visa system in disguise.

"Australia has put such a system into place and it doesn't cause any problems for travellers," said Slovenian Interior Minister Dragutin Mate, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency.

"We hope that the American system will go in the same direction and that travellers to the US won't have any problem," he added.