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EU negotiates with US visa cancelling for Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and Cyprus
Cancelling travel visas to the United States for citizens of Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and Cyprus was included on the work agenda of the biannual EU-USA meeting in the field of Justice and Internal Affairs, held on Wednesday and Thursday in Washington, a CE press release states. While the Americans enjoy travelling without visas for up to 90 days in EU, Romanian, Polish, Cyprus and Bulgarian citizens travelling to the United States have to get visas. Washington authorities consider these four EU member states do not fulfill certain criteria to be exempted from the compulsory visa regime yet. Among them the document mentions the fact that they do not issue biometric passports or do not fulfill the visa refusal threshold.
The Commission will continue negotiations with the US to obtain full mutual relations for the visa regime as soon as possible, the press release shows, presenting the CE stand at the minister level meeting.The meeting represents another opportunity to remove this problem and make progress towards a long term outlook on the way in which transatlantic and international mobility will be consolidated in a safe environment, the Commission points out.
The European Executive is represented by the IA commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, and the delegation includes both representatives of the EU Belgian presidency (Justice and Internal Affairs ministers for Migration and Asylum) and those of the future Hungarian presidency (a deputy premier and the Internal Affairs minister). The US are represented attorney general Eric Holder and the secretary for domestic security, Janet Napolitano.
Besides the visa elimination question the meeting agenda includes talks about computer crime, an accord between Brussels and Washington about Passenger Number Registration and the Toledo Declaration signed by Napolitano and her European counterparts, referring to specific measures in four domains (aviation security, exchange of information, international research and activities). Officials will also talk about security of goods transport following recent incidents.