US and EU agree to talks about visa deals

EU: THE EU and the US yesterday agreed to defuse a crisis over visa deals by allowing talks between Washington and individual EU states to run in parallel with EU-US negotiations.

The Bush administration's decision to sign separate visa deals in recent weeks with several ex-communist central European countries instead of with the EU as a whole sparked tensions within Europe and across the Atlantic.

"We were able to clarify our respective positions and we found good convergence," European justice and security commissioner Franco Frattini told a news conference after talks with US officials.

"We made a proper distinction on what is possible to do at the national level and what is not."

Most old EU states are part of the US visa waiver programme, which allows their citizens to travel without visas, but not 11 of the 12 countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007, along with older member Greece.

Washington's refusal to extend a visa waiver to all EU newcomers caused resentment in countries that are loyal US allies. Neither side spelled out yesterday what exactly fell under EU competence and what could be included in bilateral deals.

US homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff said Washington would continue to sign separate visa deals "state by state", as required by US law.

Critics said Washington's approach broke ranks with EU solidarity and infringed on the bloc's competence on visas.

Washington signed separate deals with the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia, which agreed to co-operation on air security in return for the prospect of entering the visa waiver programme quickly, undermining EU unity on the issue. Lithuania, Slovakia and Hungary are expected to sign similar agreements later this month.

© 2008 Reuters

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times