The country’s management occurred at difficult times due to the migration crisis that affects Europe and due to the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020.
Ecuador’s decision to Leaving in July 2009 the negotiations that it was doing together with Colombia and Peru to reach a trade agreement with the European Union (EU) at the time led to the country not benefiting from entry to that bloc without a Schengen visasays Charles-Michel Geurts, ambassador of the EU delegation in the country.
Geurts recalled in an interview with Diario EL UNIVERSO that the neighboring countries of Colombia and Peru are already on the list of nations that are not asked for a Schengen visa for short stays. “It was a lack of luck on the part of Ecuador for not having negotiated the process of withdrawing the visa requirement at the same time as Colombia and Peru,” he said.
The neighboring countries did conclude the negotiations and signed a trade agreement with the EU in June 2012. After that, both governments began negotiations to withdraw the visa requirement for Colombians and Peruvians who want to go to Europe.
Colombians can enter 26 of the EU member countries since December 2015 and Peruvians do so since March 2016.
Ecuador signed and only joined the trade agreement with the EU in November 2016, four years after Colombia and Peru.
On radio Sonorama, the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister, Mauricio Montalvo, assured that at this moment Europe is reluctant to eliminate the Schengen visa due to the COVID-19 situation. He clarified that it is not a particular issue with Ecuador and that the times have not played in favor of the country.
Former President of the Republic Lenín Moreno reported in January 2018 that the Spanish Government was the first of the bloc to request the EU to waive the Schengen visa for Ecuadorians.
But the management began in the middle of the migratory crisis that affected Europe as of 2015. “It was when the EU entered a very difficult moment of managing its borders with the migratory crisis. It is the reason why the entire EU capacity to make legislation on the Schengen issue, on the management of external borders and free movement within the Schengen area, all the attention was monopolized by the migration of many countries close to us. , caused by the Middle East crisis. But also, in the last two years, because of COVID-19, ″ says Geurts.
The concentration is on how to reconcile, he adds, the Schengen requirements, in particular, that of the free movement of people within the space with the biosafety needs and to adapt to the laws of its member countries, which are very different. “These are issues that have been monopolized and it means that the European Commission has stopped proposing every four or five years to the Member States and the European Parliament an update of the list of countries with exception”.
The EU delegate ensures that two things are needed for the process to move forward. The reactivation of the regular process of updating the list of countries with the exception of entering the Schengen area without a visa. And second, the support of the member countries is required.
“The good work that the Government of Ecuador is doing to convince the member states for the visa exception and to answer any questions they may have seems very important to me,” Geurts emphasized.
The case of Ecuador will be examined on its own merits, he stressed. (I)
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