Estonia sticks to US visa deal - president

11.03.2008

"Estonia, which will sign a memorandum of understanding tomorrow, has been pursuing this for four years and has kept the European Commission informed at all times about what we are doing," Reuters quoted Ilves as saying in Strasbourg today.

The Commission has only now decided to say something but no one seemed to care during the process, the president observed.

"It occasionally strikes me as odd that countries that have visa waiver programs, and have had them for decades, should suddenly say you can't have one," Ilves said.

Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said on Monday the EU should negotiate visa-free access to the United States as one entity and stop individual countries from brokering separate deals. In his words, such agreements are in contradiction with EU legislation.

The Czech Republic angered the executive European Commission when it signed a deal last week to make it easier for Czechs to travel to the United States visa-free in exchange for enhanced air security cooperation. Authorities in Prague said Brussels was not interested in visa waiver negotiations with the United States because old EU states except for Greece already are part to the US visa waiver program.

Estonia's Interior Minister Juri Pihl and Michael Chertoff, the US secretary of homeland security, are to sign the memorandum of mutual understanding paving the way for visa-free travel on Wednesday in Tallinn.

By signing the memorandum the two countries will confirm their will to deepen cooperation among their law and order enforcement agencies and tighten measures in fields related to readmission of citizens and airport and travel document security.

The exact form and details of cooperation will be agreed upon in the memorandum implementation agreements that will be concluded in coming months. The memorandum is a prerequisite for Estonia's joining the US visa waiver program.

Latvia, Lithuania and Hungary plan to sign analogous memorandums.

The signing of bilateral pacts with individual EU states has been defended by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who said the need for it arises from US legislation, and also by the signing countries who argue that they want nothing more than what older EU member states who are part of the US visa waiver scheme already are enjoying.

Twelve 12 EU countries, among them Greece and all the countries admitted to the bloc since 2004 except Slovenia, are not yet part to the US visa waiver program.

Tallinn newsroom, +372 610 8862, sise@bns.ee