site.btaCouncil and European Parliament Agree to Update Rules for Suspension of Visa-Free Travel for Third Countries

The Council and the European Parliament (EP) announced Tuesday that they have settled on an update of the mechanism that allows the EU to suspend visa-free travel for citizens of third countries who are exempt from applying for a visa when travelling to the Schengen area. With this amended law the EU will be better placed to react to situations where visa-free travel is being abused or works against the interests of the EU.

The visa suspension mechanism, in place since 2013, is a safeguard against the abuse of visa-free travel. It allows the EU to temporarily suspend the visa exemption under certain conditions.

The Council and the EP now set in place a number of new grounds which will trigger the suspension mechanism:

• lack of alignment of a country’s visa-free regime with the EU’s visa policy, in cases where – owing to this country’s geographical proximity to the EU – this may lead to increased non-authorized arrivals of citizens of other third countries;
• the operation of an investor citizenship scheme, whereby citizenship is granted to people who have no genuine link to the third country concerned, in exchange for pre-determined payments or investments hybrid threats and deficiencies in document security legislation and procedures;
• a deterioration in the EU’s external relations with a third country, in particular when it comes to human rights and fundamental freedoms or serious breaches of the UN Charter.

These reasons for suspension are added to existing grounds such as an increase in the number of asylum applications from nationals of a country for which the asylum recognition rate is low or an increase in the number of third-country nationals who are refused entry or found to be overstaying. 

Targeted application of the suspension mechanism

The Council and the EP also agreed to improve the mechanism by making it possible to only limit the visa freedom of decision-makers responsible for breaching fundamental rights and external relations obligations. Currently, all citizens are affected in the second phase of the suspension, but this can be disproportionate where a government is clearly responsible for the situation.

Under the new rules, the additional 24-month suspension phase would not automatically affect the entire population. Instead, in the above situations, the EU could decide to continue targeting government officials and diplomats.

The provisional agreement will now need to be confirmed by both institutions before it can be formally adopted.