The European Parliament will evaluate in 2023 if it withdraws visas from Ecuadorians: not everything has been said

A new opportunity for Ecuadorians enter the countries of the European Union (EU)to the Schengen area, on short stay visits (up to 90 days) without the need for a visa was bogged down in the European Parliamentmade up of 705 members representing countries hosting 25 official languages.

The EU legislative body decided to return the report on the visa waiver for Ecuador, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman to the Civil Liberties Committee, which had previously recommended its approval, and did not deal with it in plenary this week, as had been provided.

The return of the report was given before the judicial investigation into alleged bribes paid by Qatar to one of the MEPs in exchange for them voting in favor of certain decisions and influencing European politics.

Nevertheless, the vote in the European Parliament on whether to withdraw the visa requirement for Ecuadorians will be dealt with in this plenary session in 2023reported the Spanish MEP Javier Zarzalejos Nieto, member of the Legislative Committee on Home Affairs and Justice.

“The Commission services have three months to carry out the technical evaluation, but the political and legislative decision has been made. The police station @YlvaJohansson it cannot speak on behalf of Parliament or anticipate an evaluation that the Commission has not yet made,” he said, referring to the fact that the European Commissioner for the Interior, Ylva Johansson, asserted that Ecuador is not ready to withdraw this requirement.

In the case of Ecuador “there is a very high visa rejection rate” and that is a requirement that is taken into account when examining this procedure, the commissioner indicated.

But What real options are left for Ecuador to finally join the list of 61 countries that have a visa exemption regime in force?including Colombia and Peru?

Under the visa waiver regime, citizens of these 61 countries can enter the EU Schengen area for short stays with a biometric passport without the need for a visa.

Esteban Santos, an internationalist analyst at the University of the Americas (UDLA), affirms that behind the negative decisions of the European Parliament is the fear that a flow of massive economic migration of Ecuadorians to the EU will originate, that they will remain in the block irregularly.

To achieve the purpose of withdrawing the visa, there is two ways. The first is cObtain the extension of visa waiver to Ecuador within the framework of the EU multi-party trade agreement with Colombia and Peru to which the country is also already a signatory.

For this reason, neighboring countries already have this benefit. So the fight is for Ecuador to be included. One of the Initial arguments for not being part of this benefit were that Ecuadorians did not have a biometric passport, but now they already have this.

The The second option is that the initiative arises from the European Parliament commissions that present the reports so that they are finally approved in plenary sessionas is happening this month.

Both paths finally come together in the European Parliament, a body that must approve with a simple majority the decision to withdraw the visa requirement for Ecuadorians to enter the 22 countries that are part of the European Union (EU), as well as 4 that make up the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

The two paths are still firm so the opportunity to achieve the objective is intact, says Santos. “In international relations, just as I am free to be able to take it away from you, I am also free to be able to grant, but politically it is a setback because the foreign minister (of Ecuador, Juan Carlos Holguín) himself said that this should be a thermometer of his management.”

One of the problems would be the current political context in the EU. “The pandemic came, the economic recession, the war between Russia and Ukraine, all of this caused many leaders to change on the European continent, there are much more conservative governments that are anti-immigration and that is evident in these votes,” Santos says.

The assembly member of the Andean Parliament Cristina Reyes, representing Ecuador, gave hope to the country at the time with the announcement of the decision of the Commission of Civil Liberties of the European Parliament to send to the plenary session the approval of the same report to withdraw the visa to Ecuador together with Qatar, Kuwait and Oman.

This was ultimately a mistake since the decision of the Andean Parliament on the withdrawal of the visa requirement had to be made jointly around that report that included the four countries, which represented a stumbling block.

However, the option is that the case of Ecuador be analyzed in an independent report as proposed by MEP Zarzalejos, but this vote will be made after a technical evaluation and the result of the vote will be known during 2023. (I)