Eastern Partnership: why visa liberalisation is not a mistake

What have we learned from the Balkan visa liberalisation process and how would that contribute to our policies towards other third countries in our closest Eastern neighbourhood? Should we keep the EU’s door more open for citizens from the Eastern Partnership countries who would like to study, work or simply visit Europe?

These and other questions will be debated on Wednesday 2 and Thursday 3 October, on the initiative of EPP Group MEPs Jacek Protasiewicz and Veronique Mathieu Houillon, during a two-day hearing on 'Migration and Mobility with the Eastern Partnership: building an area of freedom, security and justice in Europe'.

What is the Eastern Partnership?

The Eastern Partnership is an EU initiative directed at the 6 East-European and South-Caucasian countries Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine; it aims to tighten the relationship between the EU and its Eastern partners by deepening their political cooperation and economic integration.

In establishing the Schengen zone, EU Member States resolved to facilitate the free movement of persons, while ensuring the safety and security of its common external borders. The implementation of the freedom of movement of people inside the Schengen area is one of the EU’s core achievements; it requires solidarity but has also to be reflected in coordinated policies towards third-country citizens.

Better border safeguards should accelerate the lifting of visas

At the same time, important structural, social and economic problems in Eastern Partnership countries can undermine the trust needed for granting better access to the Schengen zone. Therefore the EU engages in dialogue with them and assists in making the necessary reforms. Accordingly, the most important gesture that we can make to our partners is to enhance the mobility of their citizens, by granting cheaper visas and progressively lifting them. It fosters people-to-people contact, tolerance and economic and political relations.

Recently, the common rules for EU visas have been revised to allow the EU to temporarily suspend visa-free traffic in urgent cases, when the citizens of one country start abusing their right of free travel to the EU. Will the creation of this new legal safeguard clause accelerate the visa liberalisation processes for the Eastern Partnership?

A debate with European experts and East-European politicians

The October hearing will be composed of 4 different panels.

On Wednesday, the discussion will focus on the lessons learned from the Balkan visa-liberalisation process and on visa liberalisation and return management policies. Speakers on these panels include MEPs Elmar Brok, Eduard Kukan, Georgios Papanikolaou and Augustin Diaz de Mera, as well as David Reisenzein from Frontex, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of EU Member States, Rob Rozenburg from the European Commission, Alexandra Stielmayer from the European Stability Initiative, a think-tank for South East Europe and enlargement, Agnieszka Weinar from CARIM-East, the first migration observatory focused on the Eastern Neighbourhood of the European Union, and Giorgi Baramidze, Deputy Chairman of the Georgian Parliament. 

The second day's debates will focus on the EU Eastern Partnership initiative with an assessment of the state-of-play in the visa dialogues and the prospects for Eastern Partnership countries. Besides the EPP Group MEPs Manfred Weber and Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, Hryhorii Nemyria, Chairman of the European Integration Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament, Giorgi Baramidze, Deputy Chairman of the Georgian Parliament and former Minister of State on European and Euro-Atlantic integration, Tevan Poghosyan from the Parliament of Armenia, Vaidotas Verba from the Lithuanian Presidency of the EU, Vit Novotny from the Centre for European Studies (CES), Agnieszka Weinar from CARIM-EAST and Rob Rozenburg from the European Commission, will participate in the discussion.