Negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of the EU agreed Tuesday on a proposal for new rules to digitalize the Schengen visa procedures. The regulation introduces the possibility to apply for a visa online and replaces the current visa sticker with a digital visa. The goal of the proposal is twofold: to make the visa application procedure more efficient and to improve the security of the Schengen area, said an EU statement today. The rules — when finally adopted — will create an EU visa application platform. With a few exceptions, applications for Schengen visas will be made through this platform, a single website, which will forward them to the relevant national visa systems of the EU member states. On this platform, visa applicants will be able to introduce all relevant data, upload electronic copies of their travel- and supporting documents, and pay their visa fees.They will also be notified of the decisions concerning their visa. In-person appearance at the consulate will in principle only be necessary for first-time applicants, persons whose biometric data are no longer valid and those with a new travel document. When a person intends to visit several Schengen countries, the platform will automatically determine which one of them is responsible for examining the application on the basis of the duration of stay. However, the applicant will also have the possibility to indicate whether the application needs to be processed by a specific EU member state according to the purpose of travel. Under the proposed new rules, visas will be issued in digital format, as a 2D barcode, cryptographically signed. This will reduce security risks related to counterfeit and stolen visa stickers. The agreement still needs to be approved by EU member states before the adoption process in the Council and the European Parliament can start. The EU statement did not say when this will take place. Today, 27 European countries issue visas for the passport-free-travel Schengen zone (as members of the Schengen area). They include 23 of the 27 EU member states, plus four non-EU countries Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania, where controls at the internal borders have not yet been lifted, and Ireland (not part of the Schengen area) do not issue Schengen visas, but only national visas. The New Pact on Migration and Asylum set the objective to fully digitalize visa procedures by 2025. It is an opportunity to effectively improve the visa application process by reducing the costs and the burden on member states as well as the applicants, while also improving the security of the Schengen area. Vice-President for Promoting our European Way of Life, Margaritis Schinas, had said: “Today we are bringing the EU’s visa policy into the digital age. With some member states already switching to digital, it is vital the Schengen area now moves forward as one. “We are proposing a fully digitalized visa application to help both travelers and member states ensure smother and more secure application process.” Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson had said: “A modern visa process is crucial to make travel to the EU easier for tourism and business. Half of those coming to the EU with a Schengen visa consider the visa application burdensome, one-third have to travel long distance to ask for a visa. “It is high time that the EU provides a quick, safe and web-based EU visa application platform for the citizens of the 102 third countries that require short term visa to travel to the EU.” Harmonizing and unifying visa application procedures within the Schengen area will help to avoid so called ‘visa shopping’ by applicants who may be tempted to lodge an application with a Schengen country that offers faster visa application processing than with a country that is actually their destination. The European Commission in 2018 proposed to amend the Visa Code by adopting visa policies to new challenges and equally stressed that digital visas are the way forward for the longer term. When revising the EU Visa Code in 2019, the European Parliament and the Council stated the aim of developing a common solution to allow Schengen visa applications to be lodged online, thereby making full use of the recent legal and technological developments. The COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the slowing down of Schengen visa operations worldwide, due to the difficulty of receiving visa applicants in consulates and visa application centers, prompted member states to call upon the Commission to speed up work on digitalization of visa procedures. — Agencies