site.btaBulgaria Raises Question of Lifting Canadian Visas in Return for Supporting EU-Canada Trade Agreement

Bulgaria Raises Question of Lifting Canadian Visas in Return for Supporting EU-Canada Trade Agreement

Brussels, May 13 (BTA correspondent Nikolay Jelyazkov) - Bulgaria's Permanent Representative to the EU Ambassador Dimiter Tzantchev said that at this stage Bulgaria finds it difficult to support the free trade agreement between the EU and Canada, until the issue of visa reciprocity between Canada, Bulgaria and Romania is resolved.

The Ambassador expressed Bulgaria's position on Friday during a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, which discussed trade-related issues. The Council's presidency plans to submit the agreement for approval by the end of June. The document is then to be subjected to ratification by the national parliaments.

Ambassador Tzantchev told Bulgarian journalists that the deadline for lifting visas for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens has expired, but no decision has been made yet. The European Commission was supposed to adopt a decision on re-introducing visas for Canadian citizens traveling to the EU, but has not done so yet and has instead returned the issue for discussion to the Council and the European Parliament, he recalled.

Bulgaria's position is that the Canadian Government must show a very clear political commitment in a specific time frame for lifting the visas for Bulgarian citizens. "I don't see how Bulgarian citizens and Bulgarian businesses could take advantage of the agreement if the Canadian visa requirements remain. There were intense consultations over the past two years, but this process has not yet led to the results we desire," Tzantchev said.

It would be in everyone's interest to create the necessary preconditions for the agreement to be ratified and come into force, the Ambassador noted.

Answering a question, Tzantchev explained that Bulgaria is fulfilling the requirements for the lifting of Canadian visas. The one criterion on which this country can still work is the percentage of visa rejections, but it is related to administrative decisions made by the Canadian authorities. Formally, there is something there that can be presented as a counter-argument to the Bulgarian side, but solving this question is a political decision of the Canadian Government after all, he added.

The Ambassador explained that the manner of examining the question of lifting visas for Bulgarians is completely different in Canada and the US. This is solved by the administration in Canada, while in the US it depends on the Congress and the US administration can influence such a decision directly.