“Europe without Barriers” presents an analysis developing the conclusions on “Consequences of Schengen Visa Liberalisation for the Citizens of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova”. The research has been prepared by the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute, Florence, with the participation of Ukrainian experts. As it is known the EU decision to initiate the assessment of the second set of benchmarks of the Action Plan on Visa Liberalisation between Ukraine and the EU will be built upon the correlation between the conclusions of the EC updated Second Report and of the “assessment of possible migratory and security impact”.
Executive summary
The status quo
1. At the moment there are very few well-grounded studies about the costs and economic, social and cultural consequences of the visa regime for Moldova, Ukraine and the EU: indeed, in the last years, there have been just two reports giving a quantitative presentation of its costs and benefits. The majority of studies discuss security costs/benefits. Migrant practices are absent from policymaking considerations due to the prevailing lack of knowledge of academic research.
2. Migration trends from Ukraine and Moldova to the EU have been stable in recent years. Migration from there has been characterized by low circularity in part because of the visa regime and in part because of travel costs.
3. Already under the existing EU rules on visas, considerable numbers of Ukrainian and Moldovan citizens, namely holders of local border traffic permits, holders of valid residence permits or longstay (“D” type) visas, as well as diplomatic or service passport holders, not to mention the holders of dual EU-MD/UA citizenship, are exempted from the uniform visa requirement when crossing" the external borders of Member States.
4. The Schengen visa regime has been used as a labour policy tool. However it has not been particularly successful in protecting national labour markets. Certainly, visas have not stopped the
flow of irregular workers from Ukraine and Moldova.
5. By focusing on irregular workers, visa regime penalises bona fide visitors and limits the
development prospects of the countries of origin by undercutting brain circulation and business
exchanges.
6. By pushing migrant workers into illegality, visa regimes help perpetuate the shadow economy and
increase the numbers of those with limited access to rights.
7. The current visa regime does not allow for spontaneous circular migration (as was the case, for example, with CEE workers in the 1990s): rather, it is the main cause of growth in irregular population for those trapped in the destination countries.
8. The visa regime has an important social cost for the country of origin, including destructive effects
on family life and particularly on children left-behind.
9. Current visa procedures rarely meet either the requirements of the Visa Code, or the conditions of the Visa Facilitation Agreements. The EU pays a high political cost for this. But the cost to people and businesses is much higher and more palpable and can be measured in thousands of euros.
10. The rules of visa regime are obscure and there is limited knowledge about applicants’ rights underthe current legal framework among Ukrainian and Moldovan nationals.
Future scenarios
1. There are mixed accounts as to the quantitative effects of visa liberalization. Experts foresee a temporary migration hump, with more bona fide visitors and possibly more temporary/circular workers. Migrants and potential migrants believe, meanwhile, that visits for tourism might not materialise en masse for lack of funds, and besides migration pools in Ukraine and Moldova have already dried up: “who wanted to leave, has already left.”
2. Migrants who are already in the EU will travel more frequently to their home countries. However, the availability of financial means rather than visa requirements will be the key factor shaping the decision of Ukrainian and Moldovan migrants to travel back and forth.
3. Given the overwhelming ignorance and thus discontent about visa application procedure, we may speculate that there is a good chance that the information on visa liberalisation will also be badly prepared and will thus likely result in many unsuccessful entry attempts.
4. Even after the possible introduction of a short-term visa-free regime, entry to the Schengen zone will not be granted automatically. Ukrainians and Moldovans when crossing the external borders of the Member States will have to justify the purpose and conditions of their journey, inter alia, by providing documentary evidence, as well as proof of their intention to leave the territory of a Member State after an intended stay. Besides, visa-free mobility will be possible only for bearers of biometric passports.
5. The absence of an effective monitoring mechanism may lead, under a visa-free regime, to situations where the purpose and duration claimed and justified by documentary evidence before a border guard might not correspond to the real purpose and duration of an intended stay, thus creating a loophole which can be used by mala fide travellers.
6. In the case of a Schengen visa waiver, Moldovans and Ukrainians would not need an extra visa to enter and stay in the territory of the Schengen Member States for paid employment with three months per six-month period, provided that they fulfil other conditions of access to the labour markets of those States.
7. The economic costs of the visa waiver are not negligible. For the EU: consulates will lose an important source of income (on the other hand, they can cut staff); for local communities: outsourcing agencies, i.e. Visa Application Centers, as well as travel agencies, will lose their main source of income; for EU societies: even a small increase in migrant flows might be a difficult west given the present financial crisis.
8. A visa free regime will significantly stimulate contacts between various categories of highlyskilled workers – as researchers, engineers, IT specialists, doctors and businessmen. There will he more short-term exchanges and common projects between the EU Member States and Ukraine/Moldova. There will also be more outsourcing in particular sectors from the EU-based companies to their counterparts in Ukraine/Moldova.
9. Migrants from Ukraine/Moldova will be more willing to move to the EU legally for work (including the highly skilled), as the visa-free regime will allow them to better sustain family ties and broader social ties with their countries of origin without having to go through family reunification procedures.
10. Labour migration from Ukraine and Moldova will not depend only on the will of the migrants and relatively open borders. We have to take into account the overall economic situation in the EU, which looks gloomy in the coming years, and perhaps in the coming decades, (especially if contrasted with other emerging pools of attraction e.g. Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey) and which might adversely affect potential flows of migrant labour from Ukraine and Moldova.
11. A visa-free regime provides an avenue for getting out of irregularity for those Ukrainian and Moldovan nationals who are presently staying illegally and who are currently caught in the Schengen Member States which they fear to leave because of the risk of being apprehended during exit border checks after which they would be unable to re-enter the Member States.
Key recommendations
1. Information is the key to limiting irregular migration:
The EU and Moldovan and Ukrainian authorities should provide and disseminate accurate and precise information about the rules of entry to the Schengen area and, since migrants often do not speak the language of the host country, migrants also need to be told about the changing rules for visa status. The lack of knowledge on rules for maintaining legal migrant status (or changing that status) entices migrants to overstay illegally, and often pushes migrants to use illegal means to stay in the EU, thus contributing to risks, mistreatment of migrants and the violation of their human rights.
2. Under the visa-free system, the border is the first and final security check, sensitive to loop-holes, while it also needs to be traveler-friendly:
Assuming that the visa liberalization dialogue is successfully brought to a conclusion, the space between Ukraine and Moldova, on the one hand, and the Schengen zone, on the other, will be a true space for mobility in security: meeting all the conditions will surely make in more difficult to ignore Schengen rules and should also make the discovery of fraud a simpler matter. However, since the visa-free regime does not confer an automatic right of entry, an effective information campaign needs to be put in place to explain all the entry requirements to the Ukrainian and Moldovan public, in order to avoid a high-rate of entry refusals immediately after the countries are put on the White List. It is crucial that the “smart borders initiative” be implemented, especially by introducing the electronic Entry/Exit system and the Registered Travel Program, both proposed by the European Commission. In addition, the reporting obligation pursuant to Art. 22 of the Schengen Convention can be used more effectively by Member States to deter illegal immigration under a possible visa-free regime. In this vein, the Schengen states and national Moldovan and Ukrainian authorities should create mechanisms to facilitate the border-check procedure to reduce the waiting period for travelers by bus, car and train. Border controls should be supported by intensified internal controls in the Schengen area and cross-border cooperation strengthened in order to eliminate corruption.
3. Visa liberalisation can be an instrument of regularization
After the entry of the visa regime into force, many visa overstayers might choose to use this opportunity to leave and regularise their stay. In order to facilitate this process, the Member States when introducing a visa-free regime for Ukraine and Moldova, should consider the relaxation of the thorough checks on exit for Ukrainians and Moldovans, especially those based on Art. 7(3)(c)(ii) of the Schengen Code, for at least the first three months. Information about this initiative should be widely publicised.
4. Visa liberalisation and the labour market
Each Schengen Member State wanting to avoid the facilitated access (point 3 above) of Ukrainians and Moldovans to its labour markets in the case of a visa waiver, can use the relevant safeguard clause provided in Art. 4(3) of the Regulation 539/2001. In this way the can further require a visa for those UA/MD citizens who intend to carry out paid activity during their three-months stay. To promote circularity and legal employment, the EU should learn from its own experiences with previous visa waivers (for CEE countries in 1990s, and recently – Western Balkans): visa liberalisation should be accompanied then by measures giving more flexibility to short-term legal employment in various sectors and cooperation with the countries of origin strengthened. Illegal employment of Ukrainian and Moldovan migrants is already there now and will not disappear overnight, but it might get more intense with visa liberalisation. However, this is not a problem of borders and Schengen visas, as in the long-term these instruments cannot effectively play the role of labour market regulators. It is the role of other institutions, such as labour inspectorates, to control the rule of law in this sphere. By cracking down on the shadow economy, the Member States will reduce irregular employment of their own nationals and foreign nationals alike.
Full research can be download here
