Sunday, June 12, 2016

EU Council still fails to agree visa liberalization for Georgia, Ukraine, Kosovo, Turkey

At a meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council held on Friday in Luxemburg EU ministers failed to agree on visa liberalization for Georgia, Ukraine, Kosovo and Turkey.
"We also talked about visa liberalization today. We progress on all proposals, including Turkey, but we have not taken a decision yet. Some member states have expressed concrete worries withholding the informal agreeing at this moment. We will continue to address these worries to come to an agreement for visa liberalization for the four countries [Georgia, Ukraine, Kosovo and Turkey] if they meet the criteria as soon as possible," Dutch State Secretary for Security and Justice Klaas Dijkhoff said at a press conference after the meeting.

Dijkhoff did not told journalists what countries opposed the visa liberalization issue and what arguments they gave, while journalists mentioned Germany, Italy and France as key opponents of the decision.
Member of the EC in charge of Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos said: "We exchanged views on the commission's visa liberalization proposals for Georgia, Ukraine, Kosovo and Turkey. The commission has been very clear in its recommendations. I hope that progress in the EU Council and Parliament will come soon."
"The EU presidency [of the Netherlands] thinks it is good to know what the problem is so we can keep working and solving it. We are still working on […] get things approved. When it comes for the other countries some of them do not meet criteria on this point at this time. So we have to wait until the commission reports that they do… The progress is still the key driver," arguments said, explaining the discussion of the via liberalization issue.


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