EU and Belarus: what may be changed in the visa policy

In statements made during the conference the main issues associated with these problems were outlined.

The conference was opened by Vlad Velichko, the Chairman of the consortium “EuroBelarus”, one of the co-organizers of the event. In his welcoming words, he noted the importance of the expansion and deepening of the relations between the European Union and Belarus at all levels and, above all, the interactions at the level of citizens and civil society. Any actions and processes of rapprochement of Belarus and Europe will be incomplete and ineffective if they do not include the civil society, do not use its strength, knowledge, resources and opportunities. He stressed that the civil society in Belarus, has to closely monitor all processes within the framework of cooperation and also actively participate in it as equal partners.

A presentation of Ekaterina Glod, the Deputy Executive Director of BISS, highlighted the history, current state and prospects for transformation of the EU visa policy within the Eastern Partnership. She noted that, despite the fact that while the new format offers new opportunities, the Eastern Partnership is an “empty house”, which had to be filled with the concrete content - ideas, mechanisms, structures for collaborative work. Issues of visa policy not only require the harmonization and adoption of decisions on the bilateral level between the European Union and Belarus, but also have to overcome differences in views with regard to Belarus among the EU Member States. This would require intensive multilateral relations.

Another aspect of the issue of the visa policy was demonstrated in a presentation made by Ms. Olga Vasilevskaya, a Project Coordinator of the project «Monitoring the visa policy of the EU» (Stefana Batory Foundation, Poland), which was implemented in October-November 2008 in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Moldova. The monitoring results of the project showed the visa issue from the point of view of a common citizen, firstly those Belarusian citizens, who face them directly at the consulates and embassies. The study revealed that the adoption of the Schengen visa regime for the new EU Members has resulted in a significant decrease in the number of visas issued. At most it has affected Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, where the number of issued visas dropped by 73%, 52% and 34% respectively, compared with 2005.

The survey conducted among the visitors of the consular sections of the embassies across the EU countries showed that people are not so much worried about the price of a visa, but rather about the consular staff attitudes and the duration of the procedure. The number of difficulties associated with obtaining visas at the new EU Member States Embassies has increased, while the embassies of the long-standing EU countries, in general, improved the quality of their services.

During the discussion of this presentation, it was noted that the results represented an opportunity to exercise control and improve the work of the missions of EU Member States, and also were an important tool for the civil society for the inclusion into the process of finding solutions of the visa issues.

In a speech made by Andrei Yegorov, the Humanitarian Technologies Agency expert and a member of the consortium EuroBelarus, he talked about the existing models of the liberalization of the visa regime and about the prospects for their introduction in the Republic of Belarus. He noted that the effective promotion of cooperation between the EU and Belarus should change priorities in the emerging relations. Firstly, there must be a shift from “conditional” approach, when Europe makes concrete steps towards Belarus after putting forward conditions towards “instrumental”, which includes development and implementation of joint projects, regardless of the fulfillment of the conditions. In this case the implementation of the joint projects would become an instrument of democratization and liberalization in Belarus. Secondly, there should be a change of the “narrow” approach in dealing with the visa issues to a “wide” one. The “narrowness” primarily means the concentration on making decisions on the diplomatic and foreign policy issues. “Wider” approach involves taking care and initiating actions that would improve the visa obtaining procedures at the respective Embassies per se (attitude towards the applicants, duration issue, complexity of application forms) as well as making the relevant information available, improvement of contacts and so forth.

As part of the “wider” strategy, there was a proposal to create a single European center for Belarus. The purpose of this Center would be to inform, advise on the visa application and submission of the documents directly to the relevant Consulate or Embassy.

The discussion highlighted the role of the civil society, which should initiate and become one of the partners in the organization of such a Center.

The consortium “EuroBelarus" plans to continue public discussions related to the issues and challenges concerning the promotion of Belarus in Europe through conferences, roundtables and open discussion sites.

For receiving materials of the conference, as well as for a full report on monitoring of the EU visa policy, please contact [email protected] (Julia Galinovskaya).

Tatiana Vodolazhskaya

[email protected]