Who gets Schengen visa and who national visa?

A week ago we covered the issue of the queues in front of the Polish Consulate in Belarus. General Consuls Adam Bernatowicz in Grodno and Jaroslaw Ksezek in Brest, as well as the Press Secretary of the Polish Embassy in Minsk were not saying that the issue doesn’t exist. They explained the existence of the queues by the increased interest in traveling abroad due to the upcoming summer and by the limited staff of the Consulates. The heads of Polish Consulates know about the queues of people in front of their Diplomatic representation offices however they do not want or cannot take responsibility for that. It should be civil initiative.

This time we decided to address another issue. Citizens of Belarus do not understand what the grounds for granting Schengen and national visas are. Sometimes a person is requesting a Schengen visa and is granted with a national Polish visa and sometimes the vice versa, those who would like to go to Poland only are given a Schengen visa by the Consulate. The latter is more complicated and costly. The Schengen visa cost is almost double of the Polish visa and the insurance is also more expensive. When such cases arise many people change their mind and chose not to go Poland.

The Press Secretary of the Polish Embassy in Minsk, Monika Sadkowska, stressed that each visa application is considered individually and while making a decision whether to grant a visa, it is taken into account whether a Belarusian citizen applied for the Schengen visa for the first time, in this case it would be a short term visa always.

M. Sadkowska: “When a citizen has an invitation for a longer period of stay, which is more than 90 days, and it concerns duly justified multiple visits to Poland, he or she would definitely be granted with a national visa. In case the term of stay does not exceed 90 days, a citizen is given a Schengen visa. Every application form is considered individually”.

The General Consul in Grodno, Adam Bernatowicz explained that the type of visa depends on the documents submitted with the application.

A. Bernatowicz: “There is a short-term Schengen visa, which is valid up to three months and a national visa with a longer validity period compared with the Schengen visa. Depending on the grounds the Consul makes a decision regarding what type of visa should be granted”.

The General Consul of Grodno refuted our assumption that perhaps the European Union sets limits on the number of the issued Schengen and national visas for the EU Member States.

A. Bernatowicz: “There are no such limits and the type of visa is chosen by its validity period. It is also not possible to request a national Polish visa for three months. According to the rules, a short-term Schengen visa for 90 days of stay with the validity period of 6 months is issued when the activities do not require a stay longer than 3 months”.

Schengen visa is more expensive than national. Belarusian government is partially responsible for that due to the fact that it could not agree with the European Union on the issue of the Schengen visa cost reduction. Ukrainians and Russians pay 35 Euro for it. Naturally, that is better than 60 Euro the Belarusians have to pay. Consul Adam Bernatowicz realizes that this cost is definitely high for Belarusians however there is no other solution.

A. Bernatowicz: “I apologize for making such comparison, however it is not a restaurant, where a client orders a cheaper meal when he is not satisfied with the more expensive. All our decisions have to comply with the rules regarding the existing categories and validity periods of visas”.

Monika Sadkowska stressed that she was not aware of the issue of issuance Schengen visas instead of national visas due to the fact that there were no complaints in this regard submitted neither to the Consulates, nor to the Ambassador. To identify a problem there has to be an evidence of the existence of the problem per se.

M. Sadkowska: “An individual, facing any violations and having any complaints regarding the type of visa which has been issued, may apply for the review of his or her case. A letter could be written to the Consulate with a request to explain the decision which has been made, or inform about a problem via e-mail. In addition, in case someone feels that he or she was treated not politely, he or she should inform about it the head of the consular department or address a letter directly to the Ambassador.