Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 539/2001 listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement (Ukraine)

The EU-Ukraine Visa Liberalisation Dialogue was launched in October 2008. In November 2010, the European Commission presented the Ukrainian Government with an action plan on visa liberalisation (VLAP). The Commission committed itself to proposing visa-free travel for short stays in the European Union to Ukrainian nationals holding biometric passports, as soon as all the benchmarks set in the VLAP had been met by the Ukrainian Government.

The VLAP is structured around four 'blocks': document security, including biometrics (block I), migration and integrated border management, including asylum (block II), public order and security (block III), and external relations and fundamental rights (block IV). The VLAP sets out a series of precise benchmarks for each of these four 'blocks' of technically relevant issues with a view to adopting a legislative, policy and institutional framework (phase 1) and ensuring its effective and sustainable implementation (phase 2).

On 16 September 2011, the Commission adopted its first progress report on Ukraine's implementation of the VLAP and made several recommendations for completing the first (legislative and planning) phase. The Commission published its second progress report on 9 February 2012, and the third on 15 November 2013. Following the Commission’s fourth report on 27 May 2014 and its endorsement by the Council on 23 June 2014, Ukraine officially entered the second phase of the VLAP during which an assessment regarding the sustainable implementation of the legislative and policy framework was made.

The Commission adopted the fifth progress report on Ukraine’s implementation of the VLAP on 8 May 2015. The report stated that the progress achieved by the Ukrainian authorities in the implementation of the second phase of the VLAP was noteworthy. In its sixth and final progress report, adopted on 18 December 2015, the Commission considered that Ukraine had made the necessary progress and had undertaken all the required reforms to ensure effective and sustainable achievement of the remaining benchmarks.

Based on this assessment and given the outcome of the continuous monitoring and reporting that had been carried out since the launch of the EU-Ukraine Visa Liberalisation Dialogue, the Commission confirmed that Ukraine had met all the benchmarks for each of the four blocks of the second phase of the VLAP and that it would present, in early 2016, a legislative proposal to amend Regulation (EC) No 539/2001, transferring Ukraine to the list of visa-free countries (Annex II).

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2016)236: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2016:236:FIN

ESO: Background information: European Commission proposes visa-free travel for citizens of Ukraine http://www.europeansources.info/record/press-release-european-commission-proposes-visa-free-travel-for-citizens-of-ukraine/

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