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

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

#211

Post by ardy42 »

rmind wrote: post #60
zaroth wrote: 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…

> You suggest to look at each EU country individually (just also keep in mind that there are no border controls beetween the EU countries in the Schengen Zone). In such case, should we also look at each US state individually (because they are also not uniform

US states have no foreign relations. There's no Californian embassy in Sofia, but there is a Bulgarian embassy in Washington. No American travels on a Californian passport, but Bulgarians travel on Bulgarian passports.

If you want foreign countries to treat the EU as a single diplomatic unit, then all the EU member-state embassies should probably be closed and replaced with EU embassies, and all member-state passports should be replaced with generic EU passports.

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

#212

Post by sgc »

rmind wrote: post #203
sgc wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But doesn't it seem hypocritical to push for equal treatment externally when those requirements have not been met? EU processes like this one can take decades to iron out.

It might be a valid point to some extent, but there is an imporant aspect here: we are talking about _different_ requirements. Even though those four EU countries are not in the Schengen Area, their citizens can freely travel (without visa or any authorisation) anywhere in the EU. They just go through the border control. In other words, the requirements concerning the free travel are already met. Now, in the context…

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 internal and not relevant in this case.

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

#213

Post by Dylan16807 »

sgc wrote: post #144
rmind wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poland is in the Schengen Area. Cyprus is divided since Turkish invasion, so it is somewhat a special case. Other countries joined the EU relatively recently. However, all four countries are legally obliged to join the Schengen Area, they just have to fulfil certain requirements. Without going into all details.. don't you think it kind of makes sense? If you want to join an area without border controls, then for exam…

But doesn't it seem hypocritical to push for equal treatment externally when those requirements have not been met? EU processes like this one can take decades to iron out.

It would be hypocritical to push for certain issues related to internal EU borders when they haven't met those requirements yet.

It's not hypocritical to ask that passports from that country be treated the same as passports from any other EU country.

An argument could be made for the US to put tighter restrictions on planes coming from those countries. But every EU citizen on the same plane should get the same treatment.

It's a border security issue that should only apply to locations.

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

#214

Post by mpweiher »

ardy42 wrote: post #211
rmind wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> You suggest to look at each EU country individually (just also keep in mind that there are no border controls beetween the EU countries in the Schengen Zone). In such case, should we also look at each US state individually (because they are also not uniform US states have no foreign relations. There's no Californian embassy in Sofia, but there is a Bulgarian embassy in Washington. No American travels on a Californi…

Why? The EU and its member states are free to organize themselves any way they see fit, and states can decide on collective action, see NATO article 5.

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

#215

Post by rmind »

mk89 wrote: post #192
rmind wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> You suggest to look at each EU country individually (just also keep in mind that there are no border controls beetween the EU countries in the Schengen Zone). In such case, should we also look at each US state individually (because they are also not uniform, e.g. some are much poorer than the others)? It's not the same. When you are born in California, your citizenship is "US". When you are born in Bulgaria, your c…

> It's not the same. When you are born in California, your citizenship is "US". When you are born in Bulgaria, your citizenship is Bulgarian, not European. If that happens, of course it'll be more difficult to prevent people from a single country to move freely.

Not exactly. As already explained in some posts below, the EU has a legal concept of "EU citizenship". So, from the legal point of view, Bulgarians in your example are both the Bulgarian citizens and EU citizens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_of_the_European_Un...

> This is one of the biggest differences between United States and EU. USA is one country, Europe is not.

Sure, but how relevant is that? At least in this case, I think the difference is more of a technicality.

By the way, EU is already more than a confederation, since it actually has many properties of federation (for example, if you will compare the political systems of EU and Switzerland, you will actually find quite a few key similarities). Although European politicians do everything they can to avoid these words. So, while EU is certainly not a country, it made quite a lot of steps towards becoming one. It's just a fact, regardless whether you are pro-federation or anti-federation.

> I am European, however this comment makes me laugh. USA can literally crash EU in a couple of weeks, if they want to.

.. inflicting huge damage to itself with very major repercussions to the US national security. This world is really not as simple as that. Is US much more powerful than the EU? Yeah, sure. Although even in terms of raw power it's not as dramatic (economy: EU is already of very similar weight as US in terms of GDP; military: combined EU forces would be very comfortably the second largest military in the world, both in terms of quality and quantity). Anyway, this is rather theorethic. There are many more complex aspects which matter in reality with a very subtle palance of powers, so "they can crash us" doesn't mean much.

> This answer from the EU is just a show off, utterly useless, and obviously being two months before the elections it tells me something - we want to protect our borders from the USA? Finally we won't have anymore terrorists coming from USA. Thanks EU, I feel safer now. :)

This was actually planned and made public years ago, at least as far as 2016, so nothing to do with the elections. As pointed out by others, it is not targeted explictly at the US. It's something what's going to be applicable for many other countries.

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

#216

Post by toast0 »

sgc wrote: post #204
toast0 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passport and Visa regimes are often based on citizenship or place of birth in addition to passport origin. Also, the fourteenth amendment says "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

I stand corrected on the internal us terminology. But the dictionary definition of citizenship refers to country. Do you have one example of a visa regime which differentiates between different locations within a country?

Here's are a couple articles about China's special visa practices for people from the Jammu and Kashmir region of India in 2009. [1] [2] I wasn't aware of this contemporaneously, so I don't know quite what it was about, but it sounds like if you were from Jammu and Kashmir, your visa would be issued as a paper visa, and if you were from the rest of India, it would be issued as a stamp. A quick look at sample US passports indicates place of birth including state, so it would be feasible to implement.

My dictionary [3] has many definitions for citizen, none of which are very specific about being ascribed to a country, although the example does use a country:

> 1 : an inhabitant of a city or town especially : one entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman

> 2a : a member of a state

> b : a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it

> // She was an American citizen but lived most of her life abroad.

> 3 : a civilian as distinguished from a specialized servant of the state

> // Soldiers were sent to protect the citizens.

[1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visa-and-immigratio...

[2] http://blogs.reuters.com/india/2009/10/02/why-is-china-issui...

[3] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/citizen

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

#217

Post by mal808 »

mpweiher wrote: post #207
SllX wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know but it doesn’t work. Every single EU member state is a sovereign nation with its own foreign policy, military, standing to sign treaties, seat in the UN General Assembly, international recognition beyond the UN, and a couple of them even have permanent seats in the Security Council. And most, but not all are parties to the Schengan Area, and most, but not all, are members of NATO. The ones that are not landloc…

What you are missing is that you seem to think that because the US is organised in a particular fashion, that is the only valid organisational structure. The EU is organised differently, and it and its member countries are perfectly within their rights to organise themselves in this fashion. If you find that difficult, just rephrase "the EU has" into "the EU member states have". So: the EU member states have decided…

Thank you!! Why does this seem so difficult for some to understand?

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

#218

Post by ardy42 »

mpweiher wrote: post #214
ardy42 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You suggest to look at each EU country individually (just also keep in mind that there are no border controls beetween the EU countries in the Schengen Zone). In such case, should we also look at each US state individually (because they are also not uniform US states have no foreign relations. There's no Californian embassy in Sofia, but there is a Bulgarian embassy in Washington. No American travels on a Californi…

Why? The EU and its member states are free to organize themselves any way they see fit, and states can decide on collective action, see NATO article 5.

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 if they all had identical passports. That's exactly the situation with American passports.

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

#219

Post by SllX »

mpweiher wrote: post #207
SllX wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know but it doesn’t work. Every single EU member state is a sovereign nation with its own foreign policy, military, standing to sign treaties, seat in the UN General Assembly, international recognition beyond the UN, and a couple of them even have permanent seats in the Security Council. And most, but not all are parties to the Schengan Area, and most, but not all, are members of NATO. The ones that are not landloc…

What you are missing is that you seem to think that because the US is organised in a particular fashion, that is the only valid organisational structure. The EU is organised differently, and it and its member countries are perfectly within their rights to organise themselves in this fashion. If you find that difficult, just rephrase "the EU has" into "the EU member states have". So: the EU member states have decided…

What you seem to be missing is that the EU is an organization that legally owes its existence to a series of treaties between 28 sovereign nations and the United States is one, single, sovereign nation under International law. This system of nations is really a post-Napoleon phenomenon and wasn’t solidified until after World War 2. If it had gone a different direction, maybe every American, German, Brazilian and Australian State and every Swiss canton and every Russian oblast would be organized in a manner much like the EU and issue their own passports.

It isn’t a mere organizing principle, there is a legal distinction that is easily drawn with differing legal trappings.

The EU deciding on collective Visa measures is fine, I actually have not taken any issue with that in this entire thread, the only thing I took issue with was a bad analogy which left alone, only confuses and misleads otherwise constructive discussion.

Long and the short of it is: Hawaii and Croatia aren’t analogous to each other vis a vis visa agreements, and that’s because they come from differing International legal positions, a position in which Hawaii is actually irrelevant from beginning to end and Croatia isn’t but has the legal standing and recognition to temporarily be irrelevant in its own visa policies if it chooses to. The nuances are not unimportant.

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