Main information/Analitics
Europe without barriers" in Brussels: knocking to the EU institutions!
This week, December 6-8, "Europe without barriers" has paid public and unofficial visits to the Europe’s political capital, Brussels. The public events were held in the European Parliament building and European Policy Centre (EPC) at support of the International Foundation «European Development». Ukrainian experts has presented research findings of the independent monitoring of the EU Member States’ visa practices in Ukraine, on the Consulates’ and Embassies’ adherence to the EU relevant legislation, as well as on Ukraine’s performance in implementation of the Action Plan on visa liberalization.
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This week, December 6-8, "Europe without barriers" has paid public and unofficial visits to the Europe’s political capital, Brussels. The public events were held in the European Parliament building and European Policy Centre (EPC) at support of the International Foundation «European Development». Ukrainian experts has presented research findings of the independent monitoring of the EU Member States’ visa practices in Ukraine, on the Consulates’ and Embassies’ adherence to the EU relevant legislation, as well as on Ukraine’s performance in implementation of the Action Plan on visa liberalization.
On December 6, at the European Parliament in Brussels,"Europe without Barriers" has offered public opinion on visa problems, the most sensitive issue for the Ukrainian society. Experts and politicians have discussed the situation on the EU member-states’ Visa Issuance Policies and Practices towards Ukrainian citizens, as well as a progress made by Ukraine in implementation of reforms required for obtaining visa-free regime with the EU. Experts have drawn attention to breach of the relevant EU legislation by the EU Consulates, including Visa Code and the Agreement on visa facilitation between the EU and Ukraine. The abuse of visa centers services, unreasonable and burdensome requests for additional documents, as well as obvious unwillingness of the EU consulates to grant long term visas to Ukrainian citizens (over a year) were also indicated.
Results of the independent monitoring of the EU Member States visa practices in Ukraine and Civic assessments of the implementation of the first phase of the Action plan on visa liberalisation of EU to Ukraine were presented. Experts have asserted both the gaps of the implementation of the APVL as well as its achievements.
Members of the European Parliament expressed support to Ukrainian society in their aspiration to get rid from a burdensome visa application process in a short-term period and obtain their natural right to freely move within Europe. Among the members of the European Parliament, actively participated in the discussion were: Norica Nicolai (Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe), Adrian Severin (Social Democrats).
The meeting in the European Parliament was organized within the cooperation of the European Parliament - Ukraine LINK Group with the assistance of the Polish Office of Pawel Zalewski (European People’s Party).
On Wednesday, December 7, in the European Policy Center the expert roundtable discussion on the «EU-Ukraine visa free dialogue: Moving forward of trading water” took place.
Amanda Paul, political analyst of the EPC stressed that the EU-Ukraine visa dialogue become more dynamic; although from her standpoint, the ultimate success of the process will require more efforts.
Oleksandr Sushko, research director of the Institute for Euro-Atlantic cooperation offered detailed assessment of Ukraine’s progress in implementation of the Action Plan on Visa Liberalization. He acknowledged lagging in the first block “The security of documents”, which is caused by failure of the adoption of the key law on “Documents identifying a person and confirming Citizenship of Ukraine”. Meanwhile, the second block on “Illegal migration, including readmission” and third one “Public order and security” achieved substantial progress. However more further efforts should be made for adoption and effective implementation of laws and by-laws, in particular in the sphere of migration, asylum, border management, as well as concerning identity documents, anti-discrimination, human trafficking counteraction, drug trafficking, etc. Also he admitted a moderate progress in the forth block on “The fundamental rights and foreign relations”, where the legislative regulation of anti-corruption policy remains imperfect.
The following experts and officials participated and made their comments: Kostiantyn Yelisieiev, Head of the Mission of Ukraine to the EU; Alexandra Stiglmayer, Senior Analyst, European Stability Initiative; Paweł Robert Kowal, Member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group; Chair of the Delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, European Parliament; Viorel Ursu and other.
Detailed results of Civic monitoring of the implementation of the Action plan on visa liberalisation of the EU to Ukraine are available here.
Our gratitude:
Presented results of the activity of “Europe without Barriers” in the current year, including monitoring of the EU Member States’ Consulates Visa Policies and Practices, independent assessment of the implementation of the Action Plan on Visa Liberalization, evaluation of Ukraine’s migration potential have been carried out at support of the International Renaissance Foundation.
Comparative evaluation of visa liberalization processes in Ukraine and other Eastern Partnership countries has been done at support of PASOS.
Public debate in the European Parliament was organized by the Polish Office of the EP Deputy Pawel Zalewski.
Events in Brussels and trips of Ukrainian experts were supported by the International Foundation "European Development" (Ukraine).
