Debate: Schengen area: digitalisation of the visa procedure - Schengen area: amending the Visa Sticker Regulation
Date: TUESDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2023
Speaker: Margaritis Schinas
Language: EL

Mr President, honourable Members, the Schengen Area is the largest area of borderless travel in the world. It includes 27 participating countries and benefits 425 million people. Last year, the Schengen Area was the most visited destination in the world, with 585 million tourists, 65% of the world’s tourist movements. Visa policy is one of the fundamental pillars of our Schengen system, and at the same time, one of the most relevant and powerful tools our European Union has. In 2019, the last pre-COVID travel year, around 19 million Schengen visas were issued throughout the world by Member States. Visa policy must be implemented in a harmonised and effective way, but also has to benefit from technological developments and adapt to the new digital era, like so many other services in the public domain. The application for a visa lodged at a Member State consulate is the very first contact that a third-country national from 100 countries around the world has with the European Union. Unfortunately, today, visa applicants still have to go through cumbersome processes that may differ from Member State to the other. Very few Member States have digitised their visa procedures. The visa application remains very much a paper-based process. These procedures not only are outdated, but can be also very costly for applicants and Member States, and quite often visa applicants need to travel to the nearest consulate or visa applications centre to lodge a Schengen visa application. For as long the application is being processed, visa applicants are left without a passport, which are submitted as part of the application file. So the cost, as you can imagine, both for the applicants but also for the Member States in the handling of this paper trail, can be very significant. So it was high time to modernise our visa procedures, to put them in line with international developments and with the digitalisation of visa procedures. We are now modernising our systems whilst preserving the high level of security at our external borders, and at the same time complying with fundamental rights of the applicants. In spite of the length and of the very technical nature of the legislative texts, I would like to take this opportunity to praise the excellent and effective cooperation between the European Commission and Parliament and the Council on this file, and I particularly want to thank the rapporteur, Mr Nemec, but also the Czech and Swedish Council Presidencies for having worked intensively on these reports. This effective cooperation has allowed us to reach this agreement three months since we started the trilogues. The text agreed will set up a single application platform that all Member States will have to use after a transition period, whatever the Member State to which the visa applicant wishes to travel. Applying for a Schengen visa under these rules will be done using the same tool and following the same procedures. This will not only help us with simplification, but will also significantly reduce the administrative burden. The current visa sticker, as you probably have seen it, will be replaced by a digital visa, which will include state of the art technology to ensure a maximum level of security. This will help the European Union to rule out abuse and visa fraud. The new rules will also cater for those not in a position to apply through digital means and set clear responsibilities regarding data protection. I know that especially these two points were particularly important for this House, and I’m very happy to see that the final text now includes clear provisions on both issues. Honourable Members, a lot of work still remains to be done to make all this a tangible reality on the ground. There is indeed a substantial number of implementing acts and delegated acts to be adopted before this platform can be set up and the digital visa emerges as a reality. But today, we are taking a solid, clear path for the coming years to ultimately modernise and Europeanise our visa procedures.