Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-27-Speech-3-147"
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"en.20050427.13.3-147"2
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".
Mr President, allow me first of all to thank the rapporteur for his report and for his overall support for the Commission’s proposal.
The origins of this proposal relate to a two-fold observation. On the one hand, reciprocity is an essential principle when considering visas. On the other hand, the mechanism laid down in Regulation 539/2001 to ensure respect for reciprocity is unsuitable, essentially on account of its inflexible and automatic nature. As a result, the mechanism has not been used in more than three years, in fact not since the Regulation entered into force, even though situations of non-reciprocity continued with regard to old Member States and the number of cases of non-reciprocity increased at a remarkable rate with the arrival of the new Member States.
The Commission has therefore proposed a more flexible and more realistic mechanism, which is more credible and effective as a consequence. Every situation of non-reciprocity will be the subject of notification. The Commission will play an active role with regard to third countries that enforce visa requirements. It will draft a report to Council on the situation of non-reciprocity thus created and, if necessary, it will propose the reintroduction of the visa requirement for citizens of the third countries concerned.
The amendments proposed by Mr Lax pursue three different objectives. The first objective is to extend the mechanism to a set of situations that do not exclusively relate to visa exemptions, but also to the conditions for issuing visas. This extension stumbles at the obstacle of the Regulation’s legal basis. Furthermore, in seeking to incorporate a whole series of issues which are in reality of lesser importance, it runs the risk of weakening the reciprocity mechanism, which must remain focused on an essential issue, identified as such by the citizens, namely the continued visa requirement by third countries that are themselves exempt from this requirement by our Member States. The Hague Programme confirms that therein lies an issue to be resolved as a matter of priority.
The second objective is to prevent situations of non-reciprocity from continuing indefinitely, and to include the possibility of reacting by means of measures in the field of external relations. I am anxious to point out to the rapporteur that I share the general approach of this amendment and I must also tell you that the political orientation that emerged at the JAI Council of 24 February takes the same line. I cannot, however, accept the binding of the Commission’s power of initiative as far as proposing provisional measures is concerned, nor, for reasons of legal basis, the extending of the Commission’s right of initiative within the present contexts to proposals for measures relating to areas other than that of visa policy.
Finally comes the third objective: to include the European Parliament in every stage of the process. The necessary transparency must of course be ensured, but the reciprocity mechanism must remain a flexible instrument which can be accessed quickly, and which – and this is the key point – must allow provisional measures. The temporary restoration of the visa requirement for third countries is, in actual fact, situated in a plan other than the transfer of a third country to a list of countries subject to the visa requirement, which is annexed to Regulation 539/2001. A transfer of this type consists of an amendment to the Regulation and as such, it is of course decided by the Council, upon consultation of the European Parliament.
Finally, with a strengthened reciprocity mechanism, the Commission will be equipped to respond to the formal invitation of the European Council of 4-5 November: to continue with our efforts to ensure that, as soon as possible, citizens of every Member State can travel without a visa, for short journeys, to all of the countries whose citizens undertake visa-free travel within the Union."@en1
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