92002E3218

WRITTEN QUESTION P-3218/02

by Marianne Eriksson (GUE/NGL) to the Council

(7 November 2002)

Subject: Visa enabling Russian citizens to enter the EU

In September this year I invited three women who work at a women's crisis centre in Murmansk to participate in a European Parliament conference on prostitution and trafficking in women, on 9/10 October 2002. When I spoke to Belgian diplomatic staff in Moscow and St Petersburg about the possibility of obtaining visas for them, everyone I spoke to gave different answers, but it seemed clear that the women would have to go to Moscow with my original invitation, and that even then they would not be certain of obtaining a visa. I also spoke to the Swedish visa authorities about the possibiltiy of their flying via Sweden, but was told that a visa for Sweden would not be sufficient for them to travel on to Belgium (Schengen agreement), and that they would require a visa for each separate EU country.

I think it is remarkable that 500 000 people a year can be allowed in illegally for purposes of sexual exploitation but that it is quite impossible to invite three people to talk about the same phenomenon.

Do I need to contact a trafficker in order to invite Russian citizens to the European Parliament? And why does the Schengen agreement not apply to them?

Reply

(5 and 6 May 2003)

The Council would inform the Honourable Member that it is no part of its function to comment on individual cases involving the processing of visa applications by Member States' representations in third countries.

Member States bound by the relevant provisions of the Schengen acquis decide case by case whether to grant individual short-stay visas, in accordance with the rules of the Schengen Convention and the Common Consular Instructions. Under those rules, the representation responsible in the third country is always that of the Member State in whose territory the main purpose of the visit is to be fulfilled. Persons granted such a visa may move freely during its period of validity within the territories of all the Member States which apply the Schengen Convention in full, unless it is a visa with limited territorial validity.