Dear Members,
Thank you for inviting me for an exchange of views on this important matter.
I appreciate our dialogue on this because I am sure we agree that it’s very sensitive.
Visa waiver reciprocity with the United States and Canada has on the one hand to do with the fair and non-discriminatory treatment of all EU-citizens.
On the other hand it has to do with efficiency of our strategy to achieve this.
What I mean is that we prioritize the strategy to achieve the wished result, instead of entering into a conflict with negative effects for all sides.
I am fully aware of your expectations for tangible progress.
Let me therefore start with Canada:
You are aware of my efforts on this, because it is personally very important to me: There was a clear window of opportunity for constructive dialogue.
You all know that the issue is linked by Bulgaria and Romania to the signature of the Comprehensive Trade and Economic Agreement (CETA) and the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA).
The signature of these agreements is the main deliverable of the upcoming EU-Canada Summit on 27 October.
I moved the discussion to the political level some months ago to meet with Minister McCallum and negotiate a solution.
In July, for the first time, Canada promised to provide a timeline for visa liftings.
We are now close to achieving this.
Intense dialogue is taking place with all involved parties, at the highest political level.
Possible solutions are on the table.
I am confident we will soon show results for our work.
I believe that the progress we see with Canada proves that our approach was right: patient diplomacy engagement, commitment by all parties can bring results.
I doubt that suspending visa waivers for Canadian citizens could achieve our goal.
In fact, I am quite sure that if we forced visas on Canada would have been highly counter-productive.
This leads me to the United States.
While we continued discussions with our U.S. partners, I cannot report progress at this stage.
I will be completely honest with you: before the November Presidential and Congressional Elections, I do not expect any change.
Needless to stress that we will keep this issue at the top of our agenda with the new Administration and Congress.
It’s not about a lack of will to comply with our obligations and defend a very fair matter, but about choosing the timing that could lead to good results.
Our strategy is the same as with Canada.
Instead of counter-productive retaliation, we opt for engagement, commitment and patient diplomacy.
The role of the U.S. Congress is crucial in this respect: there can be no expansion of the U.S. Visa Waiver Program without legislative changes.
At the moment, the current Congress would simply not accept to change the Visa Waiver Programme for our remaining five Member States.
I urge that you continue to raise the matter whenever you meet with members of the U.S. Congress.
This is a joint EU effort.
And let me be crystal clear: the Commission would not hesitate to adopt the respective acts if we knew that it would lead to a visa waiver for all EU citizens.
But for the U.S., we KNOW for a fact that the impact would be the opposite:
even the adoption of the delegated act by the Commission would endanger the entire U.S. Visa Waiver Program.
It would most probably lead to the reintroduction of visas for all EU citizens travelling to the United States.
Chair, Honourable Members,
The Commission is a law-abiding institution.
But we have a responsibility to inform you, the co-legislators, about the negative consequences from the implementation of our rules.
These consequences would have been felt by our citizens and the EU as a whole in terms of our strategic relations.
We want to work closely with you to achieve the results we all want: Full visa reciprocity for all our Member States.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to personally discuss this today with you.