The sooner the EU dissolves, the better.
Yeah? What makes you say that?
As if USA exists in a vacuum.
The European Parliament votes non-bindingly to reintroduce visas for Americans
101–110 of 202 posts
Re: The European Parliament votes non-bindingly to reintroduce visas for Americans
#102The reason being that the US still requires visas from 5 EU countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania. And "The EU says it notified the United States in April 2014 that it was not meeting EU visa rules, and had given the country two years to comply."
Also note that it's not binding, it has to go to the Commission first. And, again, it's been an ongoing dispute since 2014. But still probably a reflection of the times. (Note that the US Visa Waiver program is opened to countries that fulfil certain criteria in terms of (high) percentage of visa applications granted, and (low) percentage of admitted people overstaying. So, the US basically argues that they stick to…
> And, again, it's been an ongoing dispute since 2014.
Not really a dispute initially, more of a concern. The original report notified 5 countries (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Japan and the US). By April 2016 the issues with Australia and Japan had been resolved and Brunei had announced their dropping of visa requirement to the EU, and in October 2016 Canada notified the EU they'd be dropping their visa requirement for Bulgarians and Romanians through 2017.
However,
> Despite the stepping up of political and technical contacts, there have not been comparable indications of progress towards the lifting of visas with the U.S.
> while the EU insists on equal treatment.
That's actually an EU rule it put in place back in 2001: EU visa waiver requires full reciprocity
Re: The European Parliament votes non-bindingly to reintroduce visas for Americans
#103What is going on in this world? I was reading news today that the parties on the right side of political spectrum are gaining ground all over Europe. US already has Republicans in power. Every country is becoming more nationalistic. What is driving this change? AFAICT there are no major issues that should have caused this.
It's complicated but one issue is what you might call depression economics. Before in the 1930s and now there was an economic boom when people ran up a lot of debts followed by a period of anemic demand while the debts got repaid. Both periods had approx 0% interest rates and quite a bit of unemployment and the rise or right wing / fascist politics. Not quite sure why - I guess the left out people don't understand debt deflation and blame immigrants and foreigners for their lack of jobs and money. At least we have a lite version compared to the 30s.
Re: The European Parliament votes non-bindingly to reintroduce visas for Americans
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EU is composed of seven major institutions, only one of which has direct representation by voters (the EU parliament), and the number of representatives of each country is (roughly) proportional to their size, so any given voter of a small EU country has effectively zero representation. The EU is very far from a democratic, representative system, and yet it hold tremendous power over its 'constituents.' Not to me…
The problem is that the EU is organized in such a way that it is at an intermediate stage between it being just a bunch of different nations and it being something similar to the USA. We need more EU and less nationalism to become something similar to the USA, we need a bigger EU government and smaller nations governments. The EU government is about 1% of the GDP and the nations governments are 50%, we need to revers…
> The EU government is about 1% of the GDP
this is not actually true, the way the EU has been setup is very clever: it does not attribute a large proportion of costs directly incurred by its policies to itself.
when powers are transferred to the EU, the national institutions used to implement those powers (that previously served the national government) remain, but now implement the EU's legislative program, but the costs incurred doing so are still paid by the national treasuries.
prime examples are civil aviation, food safety and agriculture policy.
these departments are essentially operated by and for the EU, yet the expenses of those departments are not correctly attributed to the EU.
if these expenses were correctly attributed for that 1% would likely be 3-4x higher, and people would be a lot more upset.
Re: The European Parliament votes non-bindingly to reintroduce visas for Americans
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also note that it's not binding, it has to go to the Commission first. And, again, it's been an ongoing dispute since 2014. But still probably a reflection of the times. (Note that the US Visa Waiver program is opened to countries that fulfil certain criteria in terms of (high) percentage of visa applications granted, and (low) percentage of admitted people overstaying. So, the US basically argues that they stick to…
That's really interesting. So you are saying the US is actually providing "equal treatment" but since each country's stats are grouped separately, some of them fall outside the requirements and lose out on visa waiver. Of course if you grouped the stats for all of EU it would probably bring everyone in range, but it's hard to argue that would be the right policy for the US.
The US has an immigration policy that uses the no. of immigrants from every country to make various decisions, such as diversity lottery, green card grants etc. Therefore, its kinda stuck with insisting on a country-by-country basis for making Immigration/Visa decisions. IANAL and all that, but it might require Congress to make changes to the immigration laws to allow the Executive to authorize visa free travel to people from those countries.
Re: The European Parliament votes non-bindingly to reintroduce visas for Americans
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is such FUD. How would preventing US citizens from coming to the EU prevent African and Middle Eastern refugees to come to Europe?
I prefer a Middle Eastern or African to a Trump supporter. It's just too dangerous to let them in to spread their ideology. ;-)
Safe to say, Trump supporters aren't traveling to europe.
Re: The European Parliament votes non-bindingly to reintroduce visas for Americans
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah? What makes you say that?
The EU is composed of seven major institutions, only one of which has direct representation by voters (the EU parliament), and the number of representatives of each country is (roughly) proportional to their size, so any given voter of a small EU country has effectively zero representation. The EU is very far from a democratic, representative system, and yet it hold tremendous power over its 'constituents.' Not to me…
So that is why everybody wants to move to Europe and feel safe there? It is like a magnet. Not only for economy but for safety too.
The EU is established to prevent wars and to keep peace.
What heaven is there out of EU? The USA where they shoot you during a police raid or Russia where they shoot you for being an opposition leader or Russia and Turkey where they put your buisness in jail for not supporting the leader or Middle East where ISIS like countries are everywhere or China which is humans' republic?
Re: The European Parliament votes non-bindingly to reintroduce visas for Americans
#108In the past 8 years, the relations between the EU and the US had improved a lot (despite there being some high profile espionage scandals). I truly hope both sides can work together, and solve minor issues like these. It would really suck to go back to the times of "Freedom Fries", especially with the threat of inner rupture, and Russian pressure in the Baltics.
> I truly hope both sides can work together, and solve minor issues like these.
The issue has been ongoing for almost 3 years (the US were notified in April 2014, alongside 4 other countries which have either resolved the issue or announced a resolution timeline), and the latest report of the commission on the subject (in December 2016) noted:
> Despite the stepping up of political and technical contacts, there have not been comparable indications of progress towards the lifting of visas with the U.S.
So outlook not so good, the US doesn't seem much interested.
Re: The European Parliament votes non-bindingly to reintroduce visas for Americans
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me to go on vacation to the US, as a European citizen (outside of the 6 countries that are the reason for this action), I just need to get an ESTA for $15 or so. I guess the EU visa will cost something similar. It's not going to change anything.
ESTA is a officially a visa-waiver program that is supposed to be free. I seriously doubt that an actual visa will be as cheap.
Yup. Visa entails filling out a huge form [1], submitting it and a fee of USD 160, visiting a US consulate for an interview with an official, then getting a visa, or a rejection (with no reasons specified).
[1] It's a huge form because, to quote Wikipedia,
> The presumption in the law is that every nonimmigrant visa applicant (except certain employment-related applicants, who are exempt) is an intending immigrant unless otherwise proven. Therefore, applicants for most nonimmigrant visas must overcome this presumption by demonstrating that:
* The purpose of their trip is to enter the U.S. for a specific, intended purpose;
* They plan to remain for a specific, limited period; and
* They have a residence outside the U.S. as well as other binding ties which will ensure their return at the end of their stay.
Re: The European Parliament votes non-bindingly to reintroduce visas for Americans
#110The reason being that the US still requires visas from 5 EU countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania. And "The EU says it notified the United States in April 2014 that it was not meeting EU visa rules, and had given the country two years to comply."
You are forgetting the "Visa Waiver Program". Essentially, the rest of us Europeans are required to fill out detailed forms, pay a fee for filling out those forms, and then get a government-issued authorization for "visa free" travel. Right.
The EU wants to introduce its own clone of that.