Suchergebnisse

Despite the lack of cooperation in other issue areas, EU-Russia migration cooperation has been fruitful to the present. The internal security driven EU migration policy towards third countries has so far led to the conclusion of readmission and visa facilitation agreements as policy outputs in Russia. This article looks at the patterns of policy convergence between the EU and Russia in light of the Common Space of Freedom, Security and Justice in the fields of irregular and regular migration. It claims that Russia's leverage vis-a-vis the Union shaped the migration policy output, in which the visa facilitation regime was introduced as an incentive to readmission. Finally, it stresses the role of Russia in shaping the EU external dimension towards Eastern European countries, once the readmission-visa facilitation nexus has been institutionalised to all the countries in the area. Adapted from the source document.

With the Eastern Enlargement successfully completed, the EU is searching for a proper balance between internal security and external stabilisation that is acceptable to all sides. This paper focuses on an EU foreign policy instrument that is a case in point for this struggle: EC visa facilitation and readmission agreements. By looking at the EU's strategy on visa facilitation and readmission, this paper aims to offer a first systematic analysis of the objectives, substance and political implications of these agreements as a means to implement a new EU security approach in the neighbourhood. In offering more relaxed travel conditions in exchange for the signing of an EC readmission agreement and reforming domestic justice and home affairs, the EU has found a new way to press for reforms in neighbouring countries while addressing a major source of discontent in these countries. The analysis concludes with the broader implications of these agreements and argues that even if the facilitated travel opportunities are beneficial for the citizens of the target countries, the positive achievements are undermined by the Schengen enlargement, which makes the new member states tie up their borders to those of their neighbours.

Outsourcing the management of migration services has grown globally in recent years. With particular reference to South Africa, Department of Home Affairs(DHA) followed this trend d by outsourcing visa issuance to Visa Facilitation Services (VFS) in 2014 to enable more secure and efficient service delivery in the permitting arena. The purpose of the study was to address a need to understand better the effect of service quality dimensions that are critical in assessing customer satisfaction and future behavioural intention in VFS centres within South Africa. The theoretical framework of the study is based on the convergence of three theories. The study employed a descriptive cross-sectional quantitative research design and reports on the results from a survey of foreign students in a selected higher education institution (HEI) in South Africa. Descriptive statistics, correlations and regression analysis were used to evaluate relationships between constructs. In terms of predictive relationships, except for tangibility, the other four service quality dimensions showed significant relationships with customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction in turn showed significant relationships with the future behavioural intentions of the respondents towards VFS. In addition, the outcome of this study provides a useful tool for gaining insight into service quality dimensions that foreign nationals requiring visas consider as important. The study concludes by alluding to the limitations and implications for further research.

The paper compares the instruments which enhance the mobility of ENP Mediterranean and Eastern citizens, by distinguishing between visa cooperation and legal migration matters. Our analysis would suggest that cooperation in the field of legal migration, and especially social security rights, is more developed with Mediterranean Partners than with Eastern ones. This can be explained by the fact that the Association Agreements concluded with Mediterranean states are a more fruitful framework for cooperation than the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements concluded with Eastern partners. As far as visa cooperation is concerned, it is, conversely, more developed with Eastern Partners. It appears that the instruments tailored in the context of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice are more appropriate to favouring the short stay of ENP nationals in the EU, to the Association Agreements. In any case, at this point, the opportunities provided by these instruments have not been fully exploited and cooperation levels remain weak.

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.

This paper is written against the background of the on-going evaluation of the EU Visa Code and an emerging paradigm shift in EU visa policy with visas becoming a tool for economic growth and job creation. The paper analyses, more particularly, current challenges for the proper functioning of the EU's common visa policy by focusing on the three pillars on which this policy is based: its cornerstone, the Visa Code; consular cooperation on the ground, as an indispensable supplement of the latter; and, finally, the Visa Facilitation Agreements, a potential tool for its smooth operation in certain countries. Due to the limited mid-term review of the Stockholm Programme, initially foreseen for 2012, the Stockholm guidelines for visa policy are integrated in the relevant analysis.