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US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021

cnn.com

231–240 of 269 posts

Re: US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021

#231
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? I think you’re confused. A US citizen who happens to be of Croatian or Polish decent is still just a US citizen. If the EU does build a database of US citizens’ lineage and then starts denying US citizens of Croatian descent entry not only would that be hugely ironic it would also cause a pretty emphatic response from the US. There is only one US country and only one US citizen. The argument people are making co…

> Huh? I think you’re confused. A US citizen who happens to be of Croatian or Polish decent is still just a US citizen. Many European countries automatically make people their citizens by lineage, not place of birth. Sometimes with little restriction by the paternal line. Being born in the US to Croatian parents will make you a citizen of both countries, no application required. Croatia may not know about it, but you…

Wow. That sounds like a pretty crazy hole in the ETIAS plan, and your comment belongs more appropriately as a child of the original's in regard to the following:

> - There is a separate dispute between EU and US, because US imposes visas on five EU states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Romania and Cyprus). According the EU law, all EU countries should be treated equally or otherwise reciprocal measures should apply. There have been calls within the EU to respond tit for tat and impose EU visas on US citizens, if the issue does not get resolved soon.

So in the dispute above that is being hotly debated, Croatians (for example) want the EU to enforce visa free entry to the US as reciprocation for the visa free entry to the EU. But according to what you say, now US citizens who happen to be of Croatian descent don't have visa free entry to the EU and must get a Croatian passport.

Re: US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021

#232
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is also free to organize its policies as it sees fit. If the EU really doesn't want the US to treat its member states as diplomatically separate entities, due to treaties the US was not party to, then it should stop holding them out as separate entities and present an unambiguously unified front. As a practical matter, no country could subject citizens of different EU member states to different visa policies i…

> The US is also free to organize its policies as it sees fit. Yep. And then you get disagreements and tit-for-tat. Just don't claim that the US's policies are in some way more legitimate. > then it should stop holding Says who? On whose authority? If the US wants its citizens to be treated uniformly, then it shouldn't give out per-state driver's licenses.

> Says who? On whose authority?

The authority or reasonableness and practicality.

> If the US wants its citizens to be treated uniformly, then it shouldn't give out per-state driver's licenses.

It may be news to you, but those aren't travel documents and are nonstandardized to boot. But if you think the EU should wade into that mess, I guess you're entitled to your opinion.

Also, it's probably worth noting treating Americans as citizens of their state and not the US for immigration purposes is totally unprecedented in the modern era of passports. On the other hand, the precedent over the same period has been to treat Europeans as citizens of their member states and not of an undifferentiated EU.

Re: US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is EU is still not a country. It’s not as easy for a Bulgarian to go live in France and claim French citizenship compared to a Californian fully moving to Texas.

Any Bulgarian may go to any EU country and get employed, no questions asked. Citizenship is a different thing and I don't see how it's related to this discussion.

A country's people is its citizens. What you're describing with the EU is open borders between countries. The EU is not a state or country under the definitions created at the peace of Westphelia. Ironically the solution over fighting over the same type of issues in the same geographic areas, although in the name of uniformity of religion instead of closer integration/market uniformity.

Re: US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021

#234
post #221

I'm an EU citizen who enters Europe on a US passport. Will I be forced to pony up money for this?

Why would you enter the EU on a US passport if you’re an EU citizen?

You must enter/exit the USA with a US passport.

Re: US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021

#235
post #60
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tit for tat is a great model in pre-school. The more mature response is to investigate the underlying issues. Instead of putting your fingers in your ears and yelling “We are EU, you must treat us all the same” there could be some acknowledgement that travelers from those countries are disproportionately overstayers and there is a justifiable reason to need to more closely track them. If US travelers are overstaying…

Just a few points: - Tit-for-tat response is a geopolitical reality. Regardless whether you think it is pre-school model or not, this is what pretty much all countries do, as it is a perfectly rational way (and sometimes even the only way) to defend your interests. By rational I am talking about the Game Theory kind of rational. :) - You suggest to look at each EU country individually (just also keep in mind that the…

As a citizen of EU country: yes I want every country to be looked at individually. EU members, unlike U.S. states are sovereign entities and I don’t want anyone to mistake EU for a single country (as Americans often do).

Re: US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021

#236
post #224
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an irrelevant treaty. It is specifically the part of the EU agreement which regulates visas and travel in respect to non-EU countries (yes, I understand others have been allowed into it by reciprocal agreement, nonetheless it an EU directive). If a country can't yet be part of it or refuses to be part of it, why should they be treated as if they were? Free travel within the EU is the part that appears to be…

I don't follow you. Which treaty are you referring to? Are you talking about the EU directive regarding the visa policy? If so, how is this relevant to the negotiations/decision-making concerning the EU-US agreements? EU directives are domestic legal acts. I guess you can think of them as US federal laws. Let me put it this way: let's say, just hypothetically, US would have some federal law regulating the movement (p…

What I was trying to say is: The schengen agreement or treaty, which is now a part of eu law, deals with visa policy for the eu. There is no reason for foreign actors to treat eu countries like they are in the schengen when they are not, since it is specifically designed to deal with eu-extra eu relations.

If the eu wants to deal with internal eu travel and residence outside of the schengen agreement that is one thing, but it's not a consistent policy to try to create a second set of international relations by selectively bypassing the schengen agreement. A second set of agreements would be both coherent and acceptable if the eu accepted that the schengen agreement was superfluous and not to be taken into account for countries that opted to enter into a reciprocal relationship with them based on this new agreement. Otherwise it is just picking and choosing without sufficient respect to the other parties involved. This would probably be for the best long term, since the schengen leaves eu international policy too tied to a few non-eu members who have schengen agreements in place.

In brief, it is the eu's problem that they have an imperfect union and have not managed to integrate all their members into all their reciprocal agreements. It is an understandable problem, but not one they can credibly complain to others about.

Edit: I think where we are missing each other is I don't view the schengen agreement as just internal policies, but the framework for the eu's interaction with the world. From what I have read in the eu's own words and elsewhere, that is its intention.

Re: US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021

#237
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is acting as a single political body, that's good. The US requires a visa for visiting from the EU, thus the EU requires the same to USA visitors.

It's not that good. Now travel for millions of Americans is becoming more of a hassle. This suits the political agenda of the EU because it wants all of Europe to be a single country run by itself and doesn't care about collateral damage along the way or even revels in it (look how big and powerful we are). But in the end it's still just making travel harder for people, despite all their rhetoric about how freedom of…

The reason the rest of the world should follow suit is to pressure the US to drop ESTA. Visa free is visa free - if your country creates additional hassles, expect the other country to respond in kind.

Re: US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021

#238
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Huh? I think you’re confused. A US citizen who happens to be of Croatian or Polish decent is still just a US citizen. Many European countries automatically make people their citizens by lineage, not place of birth. Sometimes with little restriction by the paternal line. Being born in the US to Croatian parents will make you a citizen of both countries, no application required. Croatia may not know about it, but you…

Wow. That sounds like a pretty crazy hole in the ETIAS plan, and your comment belongs more appropriately as a child of the original's in regard to the following: > - There is a separate dispute between EU and US, because US imposes visas on five EU states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Romania and Cyprus). According the EU law, all EU countries should be treated equally or otherwise reciprocal measures should apply. The…

That's how I'm assuming how ETIAS will be implemented: you're usually not eligible for visa-free travel if you're already a citizen. In the past, border police never really cared if you tried to enter EU on your Canadian passport, even if it says you were born in Italy with an obviously Italian name.

But if it's the machine that's deciding these things based on the letter of the law, you might have a problem.

Maybe ETIAS will have a bigger carve-out for these situations than the US and Canada (which exempt eachothers' citizens). Or maybe they won't.

Re: US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021

#239
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you enter the EU on a US passport if you’re an EU citizen?

You must enter/exit the USA with a US passport.

Yes, that means you must use a US passport when you are leaving a US airport. When you enter at an EU port you you can use whatever passport you want (unless the country you are entering has a specific requirement). I have an old friend that is dual US / UK citizen and both countries require that he use his passport when entering / exiting the country. So he leaves the US using a US passport, and he enters the UK using a UK passport. And vice versa. If you are a dual EU/US citizen you ONLY have to use your US passport when you enter the US, and when you leave (which hardly counts because there is no exit immigration in the US). Once you arrive in the EU use your EU passport to take the fast line.

Re: US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Huh? I think you’re confused. A US citizen who happens to be of Croatian or Polish decent is still just a US citizen. Many European countries automatically make people their citizens by lineage, not place of birth. Sometimes with little restriction by the paternal line. Being born in the US to Croatian parents will make you a citizen of both countries, no application required. Croatia may not know about it, but you…

> Many European countries automatically make people their citizens by lineage, not place of birth. Automatically ? Source?

There are literally tens of millions of Americans that are Italian citizens, from their grandfather or great-grandfather, without knowing it.
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