The European commission has amended the visa suspension mechanism adding more grounds to suspend visa free access to third world countries with visa waiver agreements, according to a new report published by Commission. The proposal was voted 41 to 10 in favor of the amendment by the committee responsible for implementing VSM. The revised criteria now include grounds weak security checks, criminal offences linked to third country nationals, and non compliance with sanctions.
The Investor citizenship schemes operated by third countries listed in Annex II to Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 allow visa-free travel to the Union to thirdcountry nationals that would otherwise be visa required. Under an investor citizenship scheme, citizenship is granted in return for pre-determined payments or investments without any genuine link to the third country concerned.
While the Union respects the right of sovereign countries to decide on their own naturalisation procedures, visa-free third countries should be deterred from using visa-free access to the Union as a tool for leveraging individual investment in return for their citizenship.
The following clause was included to the revised VSM – “A lack of comprehensive security checks, vetting procedures and due diligence by such third countries with regard to investor citizenship schemes pose several serious security risks for Union citizens, such as those stemming from money laundering and corruption.”
To prevent visa-free access to the Union being used for this purpose, it should be possible to suspend the visa exemption for a third country which chooses to operate such investor citizenship schemes, whereby citizenship is granted without any genuine link to the third country concerned.
The suspension mechanism may be triggered by any of the following grounds:
- a substantial increase in serious criminal offences, linked to the nationals of that third country, substantiated by objective, concrete and relevant information and data provided by the competent authorities; or
- the non-alignment of the visa policy of a third country listed in Annex II, where, in particular because of the geographic proximity of that third country to the Union, there is a substantial increase in the number of third-country nationals, other than nationals of that third country, who enter irregularly the territory of the Member States after having stayed on, or transited through, the territory of that third country;
- A deterioration in the Union’s external relations with a third country listed in Annex II caused by:
- serious breaches by that third country of the principles set out in the Charter of the United Nations;
- grave violations by that third country of the obligations deriving from international human rights law or international humanitarian law;
- violations by that third country of bilateral agreements between it and the Union;
- that third country carrying out hostile acts against the Union or Member States with the aim of destabilising or undermining society or institutions which are key for the public policy and internal security of the Union or the Member States;
- non-compliance or non-alignment by that third country with relevant Union sanctions.
This procedure is further amended by increasing the duration of the temporary suspension of the visa exemption from nine months to 12 months (for the first phase) and from 18 months to 24 months (for the second phase), as well as a new urgency procedure is introduced when the situation requires immediate action by the Commission.
In the event of deteriorating relations with certain countries, the commission can suspend the exception for holders of diplomatic passports, service/official passports or special passports.
The report said the Rapporteur has received input from Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, European Commission and other diplomatic representations.
