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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