Archive / Magazine / Politics / Schengen / Background | 11/01/2008

Consequences of the Schengen enlargement

For the citizens of the new member states, the Schengen enlargement comes with many positive effects. For their neighbours, however, it is a tremendous curtailing of their freedom of travel, with far-reaching consequences - even for the EU. Anita Szymborska offers a critical analysis.

Freedom of travel is a fundamental issue for future relations between the EU Member States and its neighbours. The existence of a wide-open door for interpersonal relations between ordinary citizens is the fundamental issue of an effective EU policy towards its neighbouring countries.

Photo: AP

Making it easier for citizens of neighbouring countries to travel to the European Union would constitute an important element in encouraging them to undertake democratic reforms. Experiences gained by travellers can be instrumental in changing their attitudes, formed under the communist rule. The direct contact with the Western European democracies grants them an opportunity to acquaint themselves with its instruments, making it easier for them to apply equivalent instruments in their home countries.

At the first half of 90's, that was true for the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, where after years of the division of Europe into East and West, freedom to travel was one of the main factors which led to democratic change and the establishment of free market economies in these countries. Now, the eastern neighbours of the EU find themselves in a similar situation. Seeking to establish a democratic, pro-European orientation among Eastern European societies, not only involves organising activities such as student scholarship programmes or cooperation between NGOs, but also as important is to facilitate opportunities for the ordinary citizens to become acquainted with the EU and its Member States.

Unfortunately, the current EU visa policy is inconsistent with that principle. The application of complex and lengthy visa procedures, frequency with which visa applications are refused, and unsatisfactory manner in which applicants are treated contributes to the perception that the new barriers in Europe are raised, and further, that there is no equality between Europeans of different nations. Since such problems affect the large majority of those wishing to travel to the European Union, their continuing existence is seen also as a test of the consistency between the declarations of friendship made by the EU Member States and their actual intentions. The visa policy of the European Union should not only be an instrument for combating illegal immigration and crime but also, for promoting the objectives of its foreign policy, and in particular, it should be an instrument of its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).

Now the question comes about the effects of the new EU Member Sates accession to the Schengen area. Recognising the positive effects it will have for its citizens, it is appropriate to remember that it is likely to yield some negative ones as well. These will include the introduction of further travel restrictions on citizens of our Eastern European neighbours. Unitl now, countries such as Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Hungary adopted liberal visa policies towards their neighbours. Comparing their practices in the last few years (since their EU membership) with those applied by the Schengen states, one can see several significant differences. In the case of the former:

• Visa applications were processed free of charge or for a low fee;

• The procedures were simpler (with shorter lists of documents required) and the waiting time shorter (often the entire process was completed within only one day);

• Rejection rates were significantly lower than in the case of the Schengen States

During last years those countries issue annually enormous numbers of visas to their neighbours. For example Poland alone issues around 600,000 annually to Ukraine – while all the Schengen States combined 300,000! For the neighbours of the Ukraine such volumes are indispensable as regards maintaining normal human traffic and fostering people-to-people contact. There are 12 border-crossing points on the Polish-Ukrainian border alone and there were 17,824,836 recorded border crossings (in either direction) during the year 2005.
Following the accession to the Schengen area of new Member States, the ease with which citizens of the nearest neighbourhood will be able to travel to its closest neighbours will definitely diminish. This will affect most strongly the cross border movement between Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Western Balkans, and its closest western neighbours, i.e. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Hungary.

Unfortunately, the new visa facilitation agreements (signed by Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Western Balkan countries) aiming at the liberalisation of travel arrangements affecting EU neighbours are not reflecting the experiences gained so far by the new EU Member States. Though these agreements retain Euro 35 visa application fee, the remaining visa facilitation arrangements are to benefit only some groups of travels, representing only the small percentage of the citizenry of the countries concerned. This can create a feeling of discrimination and lead to the conclusion that the European Union is interested only in its neighbours' elites.

Raising the visa application fee to Euro 60, effective as of 1 January 2007, is particularly painful for the citizens of neighbouring countries that did not negotiated visa facilitation agreement – that is Belarus. The EU claims that its priority in relations with Belarus is not to isolate the country despite its harsh policy towards the Lukashenko regime, but instead to "engage with Belarusian society by further strengthening its support for civil society and democratisation” and further, to "intensify and facilitate people-to-people contacts”[1]. Notwithstanding this, after 1 January of 2008, Belarus will paradoxically be the only EU Eastern neighbour whose citizens will have to pay €60 for a single entry Schengen visa that approximately equals one third of the average monthly salary there. As the current authoritarian regime of Alyaksander Lukashenka has no sincere interest in maintaining good relations with the EU and the country does not even have a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with the EU, it wasn't possible to enter into negotiations with the former on a visa facilitation, in contrast to Moldova, Russia and the Ukraine which have already signed such agreements.[2] The way in which the EU will addresses the visa relations with Belarus could well prove to be one of the most important matters concerning the future of Belarus and its citizens.

The accession to the Schengen area of new EU Member States from Central and Eastern Europe and the resulting significant increase in the cost of obtaining a visa and the introduction of new requirements and additional charges (such as obligatory insurance) could well result in a decrease in the number of neighbouring countries citizens travelling to the EU. This will most probably effect most strongly Belarusian citizens. The EU could pursue several options to deal with this problem. The first scenario, which for now seems to be the one being implemented, is unfortunately the least desirable: The EU claims that it wants to support democratisation and to facilitate people-to-people contacts but at the same time it limits these contacts by increasing the cost of a visa to €60 and further, makes clear that no visa facilitation will be possible until Belarus becomes a democratic nation. This argument fits well with the line adopted by the current regime and its propaganda machine, which systematically fights against Western values and claims that Europe "does not care” for Belarus. Special exemptions from payment of the €60 fee for those travelling to the EU to participate in EU-supported projects, members of the democratic opposition, or employees of NGOs or media, considered currently by the EU as a whole, and some Member States, are a no-option as their introduction will only strengthen the current propaganda claims that only those "paid by western secret services” participate in such programs.

The second option is to start negotiations on the Visa Facilitation Agreement with the current Belarusian regime. This is problematic as on the one hand, it would give this regime an unconditional legitimacy, and on the other, this regime does not seem to be truly interested in entering into such negotiations as it considers closer contacts between citizens of Belarus and citizens of the EU to be dangerous for its very survival.
The third, and the only way of avoiding the further isolation of Belarus and its citizens, and further strengthening of authoritarian regime, is for the EU to make the decision unilaterally to reduce the cost of obtaining a visa to no more than €35 for all Belarusian citizens, irrespective of the current relations with the authorities of this country.
This can only minimise the negative consequences of the Schengen area enlargement, but the EU needs to take further steps towards the facilitation and liberalisation of visa procedures for the citizens of its neighbourhood, with a view to introducing, in the longer term, a visa-free regime for the citizens of the EU. This goal must not remain limited to the existing vague declarations but should rather be translated into a road map: a list of specific conditions and criteria to be met as a guarantee of visa-free travel regime. The criteria could include for example a positive assessment of the application of the readmission agreement, or low percentage of nationals overstaying their visas.

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