Visa issuing procedure was eased, monitoring report

The obtaining of a visa became a less complicated process that requires less time, shows a monitoring survey for 2008 with regard to visa policies of selected EU member states as applied to the nationals of Belarus, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine, initiated by the Public Policy Institute, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the monitoring report, the margin of error is relatively small because the old EU member states reduced the procedural complexity and the period of time needed to obtain a visa, but the new member states took no steps to improve this process after they joined the Schengen zone in December 2007. The abrogation of the Schengen visa regime by the new EU member states led to a significant decrease in the number of visas granted to the Moldovan, Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian citizens. The report was compiled as part of the Friendly EU Border project launched by the Polish Batory Foundation in 2002, which enabled to appropriately assess the consequences of the recent changes to the visa policies of the EU member states following the extension of the Schengen zone and approval of visa issuing facilitation agreements. As part of the survey, there were questioned the Moldovans who applied for visas at the consulates of the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland and the Common Visa Issuing Center. After the facilitated visa regime was introduced, the number of exemptions from paying the visa fee increased and the duration of the visa issuing process decreased. However, the number of documents needed to obtain a visa was not modified. Though the number of multiple-entry visas granted has increased, their limited period of validity reduces significantly their practical value.