Tag: visa-free

By Andrew Rettman

BRUSSELS – Turkey says future visa-free travel will work out well because Turks no longer want to live in the EU.

Istanbul mall – the city is relatively rich. But in rural areas, around 10 percent of people live in poverty (Photo: maistora)

Its European affairs minister Egemen Bagis told EUobserver on Friday (22 June) that Turks these days travel to EU capitals “to spend [money]” in shops and hotels.

“In the past, when Turks were asked do you want to live in Europe, 80 percent would say Yes. Now, 85 percent say No. Turkish citizens feel there is more hope in Turkey, better job opportunities,” he said.

He noted that in 2010, 27,000 Turks went to live in Germany, but 35,000 German citizens moved to Turkey.

He added that “many” of the 5.5 million Turks who live in the EU are considering going to Turkey to seek a better life for themselves and their children.

Bagis spoke after EU countries earlier in the week agreed plans for visa-free travel by 2014 or 2015.

His words are backed up by economic data, to an extent.

While the eurozone stumbles from crisis to deeper crisis, Turkey’s GDP per capita is galloping upward.

In the Ankara and Istanbul regions it is already on par with Greece, former Communist EU countries and parts of Spain and the UK.

Peering over the border, the crisis is eating away at Athens – three four-star hotels in the central museum district closed last year because visible street crime scared off guests.

Turkey is not just Istanbul and Ankara, however – in rural areas, around 10 percent of people live on the equivalent of less than $5 a day.

In return for the visa deal, Turkey is to implement a “readmission” pact – extra measures for stopping migrants from as far afield as China or Pakistan sneaking into the EU.

Bagis said Turkey will create a 50,000-man-strong civilian border police, “humane” detention centres and “new fences.”

Turkey currently intercepts 70,000 people a year trying to get into Greece or Bulgaria. The number “could easily double or triple” once the new measures are in place, he said.

Bagis noted that 30,000 Syrian refugees are being housed in eight camps in southeast Turkey. But Turkish soldiers and gendarmes are making sure they stay put and that no weapons get in.

The EU visa deal will also see Turkey sign an “operational agreement” with the EU’s joint police body, Europol.

A report by British MPs last year said Turkish-based organised crime groups are a growing threat to EU security on heroin and cocaine smuggling and human trafficking.

They said lack of intelligence-sharing, such as personal data on suspects, helps the gangs make hay.

via EUobserver.com / Enlargement / Turks do not want to live in the EU any more.

By AYLA ALBAYRAK

ISTANBUL—The European Union on Thursday eased visa procedures for Turkish citizens, just a day after Turkey again raised onerous visa requirements for its businessmen and citizens as a key source of friction in the relationship.

Under changes announced Thursday by the European Commission, EU consulates in Turkey will now have uniform lists of documents they can ask visa applicants to provide.

Turkey, which started negotiating for EU membership six years ago and has had a customs union with the bloc since the mid-1990s, has become increasingly impatient as the bloc has eased visa requirements for countries in the Balkans and elsewhere, but not Turkey.

Responding to the move in a phone interview Thursday evening, Turkey’s EU minister Egemen Bagis—who had attacked Brussels over the visa issue Wednesday—welcomed the move, but said it wasn’t enough.

“This is a very good first step, but the point we want to get to is for Turkish citizens to be able to travel to Europe without a visa,” Mr. Bagis said in a phone interview. “Turks are the only citizens of a country negotiating for [EU] membership who need a visa to travel to the EU.”

Mr. Bagis said the commission had promised him that further partial steps would follow, namely that in future Turks would be able to get multiple-entry, instead of just single-entry, visas to the EU’s visa-free Schengen area, and that offices would be set up in Turkey to ease the process. EU citizens don’t need a visa to visit Turkey.

Resistance to easing visa restrictions for Turks has come from EU governments rather than the European Commission, Turkish officials say. Turkey has a population of 74 million and income levels much lower than in core EU countries. Governments have worried over a potential flood of Turkish immigration that would be politically unpopular at home.

Turkey’s economic success over the past decade, which has seen gross domestic product per capita triple to around $10,000, played a role in Thursday’s decision, according to Mr. Bagis. “It is not enough to be right, you have to be strong and Turkey has become stronger,” Mr. Bagis said.

Turkish businessmen in particular have long complained that while their exports and investments are welcome in the EU, they are not. The EU is by far Turkey’s largest trading partner.

“We know cases when Turkish businessmen were prevented from coming to fairs in Europe or were given only two or three-day visas for one-week events,” said Bahadir Kaleagasi, Brussels-based international coordinator for TUSIAD, Turkey’s main business association. “Countries could even require for land registry documents.”

An EU official said the change had been in the works for some time and was designed to address such complaints.

“Some countries could ask for marriage certificates. Military certificates could be asked from young men who were suspected of trying to escape [compulsory military service in the] Turkish army,” said Erwan Marteil, Counselor in the European Commission’s Ankara office.

The new rules on visa documentation entered into force immediately Thursday and will apply to all of the Schengen visa area, which covers more than 25 European countries, including several such as Iceland that aren’t EU members.

via EU Eases Visa Rules for Turks – WSJ.com.

A roadmap is to be drawn that foresees the removal of visas for Turks wanting to travel to the EU, the European Parliament announced in a session that focused on the bloc’s visa requirements for Turkish nationals, a first-time development since Turkey took up accession negotiations almost a decade ago.

 

Turkey’s EU Minister and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bağış attended the Wednesday session of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, during which EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstrom said visa requirements for Turkey would be removed completely, and in the meantime, the process for visas would be eased for Turkish nationals.

“For the first time I can see the light at the end of the tunnel regarding the visa issue,” Bağış was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency on Wednesday, as he regarded the development a step toward ending discrimination against Turkey. “All we ask for is to be treated equally to other candidate countries,” Bağış said.

Malmstrom noted that the process would take time, and that the EU and Turkey “are about to embark on a journey.” “And to begin with we will ease visa procedures,” she said as she spoke at the first high-level meeting between Turkey and the union. Turkey expects the meeting to be followed by others, which will eventually lead to the complete removal of visas for the candidate country.

As a first step to easing the visa process for Turks, which is planned to be implemented in the fall, EU member countries will issue longer term visas with multiple entries and in a much shorter timeframe. Less paperwork and indefinite visas, particularly for businesspeople, are also among the measures that will make the visa process less painful for Turks wishing to travel to EU countries.

Members of Parliament also raised questions over the easing of visa procedures, saying Turkey’s location might endanger EU members, since it borders an area where many illegal immigrants enter from, and also repeated a familiar concern that a wave of migration from Turkey might hit the EU. Bağış responded to the concerns, saying that a reverse migration was currently under way, and “as a matter of fact, nearly 30,000 Turks have returned home within the past few years.”

Bağış also noted that Turkey was the only country that did not benefit from visa exemptions in its pre-accession period out of the other negotiating countries, and that Turkey was waiting for justice to be done by being treated equally. The minister highlighted that Turkey was Europe’s sixth and the world’s 15th fastest growing economy, and that applying visa restrictions to Turkey even defied court rulings of EU countries.

“The European Court of Justice and many other courts in Europe say visas cannot be applied to Turkey. The visa procedure defies the law,” Bağış was quoted as saying by Anatolia.

via EU to ease visa for Turkey, complete removal to follow.