Friday 6 May 2016

Visa liberalization in a hurry


European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, and Turkey´s Foreign Affairs Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, launched the EU-Turkey Visa liberalisation dialogue in Ankara 13 December 2013.

The aim of the EU-Turkey visa liberalisation dialogue is to make progress towards the elimination of the visa obligation currently imposed on the Turkish citizens travelling to the Schengen area for a short term visit. The dialogue consists of a screening of the Turkish legislation and administrative practices, which will be carried out by the Commission on the basis of a document, elaborated by the latter, called "Roadmap towards the visa-free regime with Turkey".
According to the European Commissions Press Release 13 December 2013 this document 
lists the requirements which should be fulfilled by Turkey to allow the Commission to present a proposal based on solid grounds to the Council and the Parliament to amend the EC Regulation 539/2001, listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement, so as to move Turkey from its negative to the positive list.
Among the requirements included in the Roadmap many refer, inter alia, to the need to implement in a full and effective manner the readmission agreement, to manage the borders and the visa policy in such a manner as to effectively prevent irregular migration, to have secure travel documents, to establish migration and asylum systems in line with international standards, to have functioning structures for combating organised crime with focus on migrants' smuggling and trafficking in human beings, to have in place and implement adequate forms of police and judicial cooperation with the EU Member States and the international community, and to respect the fundamental rights of the citizens and the foreigners with a specific attention to persons belonging to minorities and vulnerable categories.
Once the Commission considers that all the requirements listed in the Roadmap are fulfilled and has presented its proposal to amend the EC Regulation 539/2001, this proposal will be voted by qualified majority by the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. 

The Press Release also said that the Roadmap does not set a specific timetable by when the dialogue should be completed or this proposal should be presented, thus 
the speed of the process towards visa liberalisation will depend essentially on the progress which will be made by Turkey in addressing the requirements set out in the Roadmap. 

However, speeding up the process and specifying a timetable was incorporated in EU-Turkey migrant deal of 18 March 2016
with a view to lifting the visa requirements for Turkish citizens at the latest by the end of June 2016, provided that all benchmarks have been met.
Not surprising, 4 May 2016 the European Commission  opened way for decision by June on visa-free travel for citizens of Turkey. First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said

Turkey has made impressive progress, particularly in recent weeks, on meeting the benchmarks of its visa liberalisation roadmap. There is still work to be done as a matter of urgency but if Turkey sustains the progress made, they can meet the remaining benchmarks. This is why we are putting a proposal on the table which opens the way for the European Parliament and the Member States to decide to lift visa requirements, once the benchmarks have been met
Because EU is under great pressure due to migration crisis, there is reason to believe that the European Parliament and the Member States will decide to lift the the visa requirements.

Monday 2 May 2016

EU collapse ahead ?



The former Italian PM and European commissioner Mario Monti fears "corrupt" national politics, structural holes in the Brussels machine and external crises may trigger the collapse of the European Union. And the return of the bloody past that preceded it.  He said to Francesco Guerra in an interview for Politico.eu  that the problems EU now faces
"leads me and others for the first time to consider whether we are not heading towards disintegration". "The EU has never been hit by such a high number of different crises of this gravity,” he continued, referring to the migration problem, the rise of terrorism, and the bloc’s persistent economic malaise. "What I am concerned about is that, although the EU has developed itself historically through a process of crisis, response to the crisis, and advancement, this time around it may well not happen."...

Monti’s skepticism over the wisdom of Jean Monnet — who famously said that “Europe will be forged in crises” — stems from his low opinion of national governments and the body that represents them in the Brussels’ pantheon: the European Council. “Nobody could seriously pretend that the full-time EU institutions [the Commission, Parliament, European Central Bank, and European Court of Justice] are the ones responsible for the lack of adequate and timely responses to the present constellation of crises,” he said. “That is the Council, in particular in its highest formation, i.e., the European Council.” ...

“I think the turning point was the financial crisis, which coincided with the French presidency of 2008,” he said. “The problem of the day was rescuing the banks and even rescuing states to some extent. That was to be done with money from member states, not from the tiny EU budget. Therefore, it was inevitable that the power largely shifted from the Commission to the Council and, within it, to the top table, the European Council.”...
In his view, the Council’s rise to prominence has been coupled with the steady drift of national political discourses towards nationalism, populism and a focus on the short-term. “The degree of mistrust and sheer prejudices between North and South and between East and West has never been so high and so unashamedly voiced,” he said...
“Unfortunately, this has started to pay off, at least in the short-term, for politicians who cultivate the gut feelings of their citizens. Even heads of government and ministers belonging to traditionally pro-European parties now indulge in this habit. They hit out at the EU and also to other member states in bilateral acrimony.”...
 “If it is an irreversible process, we are going to lose our democracies in our member states,” he said. “Because what is at stake now … is the first wave of an earthquake deriving, in my view, from deeper stresses in the underground of politics. But at the same time, there is also a declining trust in national authorities, a declining participation in votes, a growing impatience with the lack of performance by national governments.”...
The question is what he and other members of the traditional European elite can do about this. There is a long pause and then: “Not much.”"...

But Monti is still trying. He chairs EU`s high level group on own resources, which aims to reform and perhaps expand the EU budget. This is necessary because

“over the past eight, 10 months for the first time in many years, we have seen the member states … saying, for the refugee crisis, the eurozone crisis, the fight against terrorism, ‘hey Brussels, this has to be a new function of yours.’ We want to work on the simple logic that if there are new functions, maybe there should also be new resources.”

Hopefully the high level group will make useful analyzes. But to survive and prosper the EU can´t continue to turn a deaf ear to a large and growing number of critics who say "hey Brussels, we are unhappy an fed up with your centralized big government politics, we want a better balance between Union and national level".

Growing resistance especially against Brussels handling of refugee and eurozone crises is expressed through elections both in the Member countries and at Union level. This is how democracy works. Or should work. Because Brussels decisonmakers does not seem to understand that their Majority decisions should take into account the criticism in a better way. If this does not happen the EU's legitimacy will be undermined and nationalism increase. The Union appears to be at a crossroads now. The road followed so far continues straight ahead towards the The United States of Europe or one European country - probably dominated by Germany. The other road leads to a more balanced union, where the differences between Member states and between political opinions are better taken into account.

Mr Montis fear of the Unions collapse and the return of its bloody past is wellfounded. But he seems unwilling or unable to suggest necessary measures to avoid it.