BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

21/04/2006

NGOs and day-traders to get EU visa breaks

By Andrew Rettman

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Belarusian civil society activists and EU border traders are to get special exemptions from Schengen zone visa price hikes in 2007, with some member states still fighting for further concessions.

The price of a visa for the EU's borderless Schengen zone is to go up from ?35 to ?60 next year due to higher costs for the so-called SIS II border control system which uses biometric data.

EU home affairs ministers plan to sign off the changes on 27 April, with new prices formally in effect from 1 January but with practical implementation a few weeks or months later.

The draft agreement proposes in its preamble and in an annex no price hikes for civil society and pro-democracy activists to foster "people-to-people contact" with the EU.

Belarus is not named in the text, EU diplomats say, but the wording is designed with Belarus in mind and dubbed "the Belarus annex" in Brussels circles.

Day-traders who can prove they live in a 30 km zone beside the EU border will receive cheap or free multi-visit passes to protect regional economies in places such as Ukraine.

On top of this, the draft agreement gives price hike exemptions for students, academics, children under six years, schoolchildren and their accompanying teachers.

Other exemptions can be granted by individual EU consulates on a case-by-case basis, such as for traveling sports teams.

Readmission agreements

The EU is also making special arrangements for Russia, Turkey, the Western Balkan countries and the 16 Mediterranean and post-Soviet states included in its so-called neighbourhood policy.

Prices will stay at ?35 for any members of the group that sign a "readmission agreement" with the EU on rules governing the expulsion of visitors who outstay their welcome.

The complex readmission agreements, negotiated bilaterally by the European Commission, also contain security provisions on terrorism, drug smuggling and people trafficking.

The EU-Russia readmission deal is already in place and will cover expatriate Russian passport holders including in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia.

Ukraine is soon to follow and Morocco is also making good progress in readmission talks, a commission spokesman indicated.

A "roadmap" for readmission discussions with the Western Balkan states could emerge after a Balkans security conference in Vienna on 4 May, he added.

The spokesman was sceptical that all the qualifying countries will broker agreements before 2007, with nil prospects for a Belarus deal.

Loose ends

The Austrian presidency expects the draft price hike agreement to be rubber-stamped without much discussion in Luxembourg next week.

But Hungary and Greece plan to raise objections about details of the arrangements for border traders at an EU ambassadors' meeting on Tuesday.

France initiated the push for higher prices, but many new member states are worried the hikes could poison neighbourly relations, with German diplomats sympathetic to the argument.

The 27 April decision, based on qualified majority, can be taken without Greece and Hungary's consent however.

Source:

http://euobserver.com/9/21411