The Head of public initiative “Europe without Barriers” Iryna Sushko gave some comments to “Evropeiskiy Prostir” about consequences of granting Ukraine the Action Plan on Visa Liberalisation. Extended discussions and harmonization with the requirements of the European Commission and certain EU Member States proved that the idea of visa-free movement is not unanimously supported by the players competent to make the decision concerning visa-free expectations of Ukraine.
Such reality should not deter the authorities and the society away from their intentions; however it also means that the efforts should be consolidated not only in order to fulfill the assumed obligations but also to start active advocating work aimed at the biggest skeptics of Ukraine who can project their biased position during the country’s implementation of the Action Plan.
The signals demonstrating the advantages of establishing a visa-free regime could turn into positive messages for opposing countries. Yes, we have some problems, but we are ready to solve them and the Action Plan sets out the necessary instruments for enhancing security through fighting illegal migration, human trafficking, improvement of business climate and tourist industry; promotion of democratic values through combating corruption, organized crime, etc.
Fulfillment of the Action Plan criteria will benefit to shaping positive image of the state, its political elite and its citizens.
During the Ukraine-EU Summit it was already clear that this time the obstacles were removed by arrangements, concessions and newly created conditions that would complicate and defer receiving the right to freedom of movement across Europe for Ukrainian citizens.
Obtaining the Action Plan by Ukraine is the subject of high media and public interest. There have appeared different comments on the document, even though few people have seen it up till now.
The attempts made by the experts to find this document on the official web sites of Ukrainian government and relevant EU institutions were unsuccessful. We wonder why this long anticipated “manual” is not available for general public and why the experts, public and mass media had to make extraordinary efforts in order to find the documents and post it publicly online on several websites of mass media and civil organization? Maybe the parties did not agree on the publicity level of the document?
Who will benefit if the document stays half secret and its implementation is not fully monitored by the experts and public?
At the same time having analyzed the Ukrainian Action Plan that we’ve received “under the counter” we can state that there is probably a single difference from the Balkan Roadmaps in terms of the operational sphere: the system of two tiers of benchmarks. According to this system the EU Council will make the decision twice – first time about initiating the transition to the second tier of benchmarks and then on the lifting of visa obligations.
The first assessments on the fulfillment of the first set of benchmarks will be available after the close examination, key findings of which will be reported to the EU Council by the experts of the European Commission and later the Council will make the relevant decision in the middle of 2011.
With this purpose the fist tier contains preliminary and organizational issues concerning the aspects of legislation, while the second tier presupposes implementation of relevant measures in the following blocks: document security, including the requirement to introduce biometric passports, migration issues, implementation of the Readmission Agreement; public order and security, external affairs.
Among other issues great attention was paid to the necessity to develop an anti-corruption program, in particular in the sphere of printing and issuing passports in full compliance of the standards of international organizations, including ICAO criteria.
Introduction of plastic ID cards is one of the requirements not listed in the Action Plan, but being an inseparable part of the visa-free travels to the Schengen zone made by the third country nationals.
Ukrainian authorities are aware about the need to introduce such cards and they promised to start the issuing process in the second half of 2011.
The process of introducing biometric passports is slow. By now, the authorities have only started developing draft regulatory legal act on introducing biometric technologies for international passports; the system for personal data protection has not been created yet.
Training programs targeting the officials and public authorities dealing with international passport issuance should be established to a high level of effectiveness in order to improve the results of corruption fighting.
Benchmarks set out for migration policy presuppose that the government of Ukraine should not only efficiently implement the relevant legislation, but enhance cooperation between officials within the FRONTEX exchange program as well, in particular establish trainings for the State border service of Ukraine in compliance with European operational standards.
While preparing for the Action Plan the government adopted the concept of integrated border management envisaging improvement of border security in line with European standards, establishing information exchange between Ukrainian and international law enforcement agencies, etc.
There are many tasks concerning “Public order and security” block. Ukrainian government should focus on adopting relevant legislation and approving the strategy for fighting organized crime, combating trafficking in human beings, corruption, in particular establishing a single anti-corruption agency.
Within “External relations” block Ukraine will have to develop the system of preventing xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination.
Apart from the tasks relating to the four blocks other criteria linked to the visa issuance procedure and border crossings will have an impact on the assessments made by the European Commission.
In particular we speak about the visa refusals rate on behalf of EU Member States concerning Ukrainian citizens (this level should not exceed 3%) and the number of citizens who were refused entry. The number of readmission cases will also be taken into account.
Implementation of the first set of benchmarks listed in the Action Plan will test how responsible Ukrainian authorities are concerning fulfillment of their obligations. Effective implementation of the Action Plan is possible only on condition all power branches consolidation and active engagement of Verkhovna Rada and Ministry of Interior, whose competence will contain the lion’s share of the defined benchmarks.
Receiving the set of benchmarks is only the next step taken by Ukraine in the right direction, however it should be followed by a number of coordinated actions taken by the authorities, supported by political will and institutional capacities as the time for establishing visa free regime with the EU will depend on them.
