Refashioning the EU Visa Policy: A New Turn of the Screw on Cooperation on Readmission and Discrimination?

Abstract

Since the establishment of the Schengen area, border management has been having momentum within the European Union (EU) and, one of its major building blocks is the common policy on visas. This allows to control who can have access to the Schengen area for short stays that do not exceed three months over any six-month period. This article investigates how the EU visa policy has been influenced by the ever-evolving migratory dynamics towards the EU. Focusing on the latest reform of the Common Code on Visa, which has entered into force in 2020, this article argues that the new approach to conditionality in EU migration law has consolidated the intertwining between the EU visa policy and cooperation on readmission. Over the years, the latter has constituted an incentive for the EU in order to offer visa facilitation regimes or specific visa waivers to nationals of third countries. However, this article criticizes the new mechanism, introduced by the recent reform, and providing the European Commission with the mandate to propose specific restrictive measures related to visa processing and visa fee in case of a lack of cooperation especially on readmission. In an attempt to shed light on the legal concerns raised by this mechanism, the paper concludes that it even emphasises the discriminatory effects of the EU visa policy and, more generally, it impacts on the cooperation with third countries within the EU General Approach to Migration and Mobility.