EU divided ahead of US visa talks[fr][de] 

Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Fratttini said he hoped talks with the US would move fast enough to enable a visa waiver scheme for all 27 member states to be endorsed at the next EU-US summit in June and implemented by the end of 2008. 

However, for many new EU members - all of which but Slovenia are still exempted from the US visa waiver programme - the efforts come too late. They say the EU executive has made too little progress and are now seeking to conclude agreements with the US on a bilateral basis, despite a Commission recommendation to the Council, on 11 March, for a bloc-wide deal to be struck. 

Last month, the Czech Republic was the first country to sign such a bilateral agreement, a move which was strongly criticised by EU officials, who said the step undermined the Union's common visa policy. 

Despite threats of legal action and calls for member states not to conclude any further agreements until the EU-US Troika meeting on 13 March, the Commission and the Slovenian Presidency were unable to prevent other countries from following suit. Estonia and Latvia signed an accord with the US yesterday (12 March), and Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia are expected to do the same later this month. 

"There is nothing that is not in agreement with EU competencies," said US Secretary for Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, commenting on the deal with Estonia and countering EU allegations that such bilateral agreements violate Union law. 

A meeting of EU ambassadors on 12 March was forced to concede that a "twin-track" approach would now be the best way forward. The Commission will receive a mandate to negotiate an EU-wide deal while new member states will be allowed to proceed with their bilateral talks. Nevertheless, it was agreed that "memoranda already signed and to be signed by other member states should not be considered as operational documents [but] rather as political documents," Frattini explained.

Countries signing bilateral pacts will not get immediate visa-free travel for their citizens, but Washington has promised to make access easier if the countries fulfill certain security requirements, such as transferring additional information on transatlantic passengers and allowing armed air marshals on board US carriers flying to and from their territory. 

These demands go far beyond a June 2007 EU-US agreement on passenger name records (PNR), which obliges airlines to provide US authorities with a certain amount of personal data on transatlantic travellers (EurActiv 29/06/07).