EU visa policy: A dash for growth?

Historically, EU visa policy has principally concerned itself with controlling the risk of irregular migration and possible threats to security, balanced against EU foreign policy objectives. But in the last few years that policy has increasingly come to take account of economic growth (most notably as regards the EU tourism industry).

This reorientation was launched in a European Commission communication of 2012, and is already reflected in the last set of changes to the EU’s visa ‘whitelist’, which now includes trade and investment among the criteria for liberalising visas. Indeed those most recent amendments applied this policy by moving Peru and Colombia onto the visa waiver whitelist in return for signing a trade deal with the EU.

Will this policy also impact upon the EU’s visa code, which sets out the detailed rules for visa applications? In 2014, the Commission proposed an overhaul of the code, alongside a parallel proposal for a ‘touring visa’ for those who wanted to stay for more than three months in the Schengen area (but for no more than three months in any one Schengen State).

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council - A smarter visa policy for economic growth http://www.europeansources.info/record/report-from-the-commission-to-the-european-parliament-and-the-council-a-smarter-visa-policy-for-economic-growth/

European Commission: DG Migration and Home Affairs: Schengen, Borders & Visas: Visa policy http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/visa-policy/index_en.htm

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