Customers give mixed reviews to attempts by European Union nations to outsorce the visa process to private firms.
Poland opened a new visa center in Kyiv’s Podil district on April 2, strengthening its capacity to deliver visas.
Ukraine’s northwestern neighbor currently accounts for 40 percent of all Schengen visas issued in Ukraine, which allow entry to 23 European Union members, plus Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.
To keep up with growing demand, Poland has increased the number of its consulates to seven, but also outsourced services, including collecting documents and providing information, to seven visa centers run by a private firm, VFS Global.
Such centers, which have also been opened by other EU countries, have made acquiring a visa more convenient and faster for many, particularly those who don’t live in large cities.
But applying through these centers is more expensive while the cheaper option of filing to consulates is becoming a longer and more difficult process.
Demand for Polish visas is on the rise – the country issued 570,700 in 2011, up from 439,000 visas in 2009, with 2012 promising to be even bigger. Applications are also on the rise at other European consulates.
Along with Poland, Swiss-registered VFS Global runs visa centers for 14 countries in total. They are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Italy uses the company Visa Management Service.
There are no lines. You go in and in 10 minutes you are free. You don’t have to waste a whole day to apply for a visa.
– Oleksiy Timofeyev, local businessman
The chief perk of the visa centers is convenience. Residents of Ternopil and Ivano Frankivsk, for instance, no longer have to travel to Lviv to apply, but can do it closer to home. Moreover, the well-organized and staffed centers have largely done away with the queues that once marked the consulate entrances.
“Generally, it is very good that these centers are open,” said Maryanna Kuzio, a project manager at the civil society organization Europe Without Barriers. It’s more convenient and accelerates the process, she said, meaning it makes a lot of sense for such overbooked countries like Poland.
Many applicants seem to agree.
“It is worth the 205 hryvnias. The service is good, the personnel are nice and helpful. It is not like usually in an embassy where you often feel like in a concentration camp,” said Oleksiy Timofeyev, a local businessman leaving the new visa center on April 3.
“There are no lines. You go in and in 10 minutes you are free. You don’t have to waste a whole day to apply for a visa.” But others resent the fee, which often represents 50-70 percent of the visa price.
“We already pay 35 euros for the embassy to make this work. What should we pay extra money for?” said Serhiy, who is afraid of giving his full name for fear of being denied a visa, adding that Hr 205 is a lot of money for an average Ukrainian.
Asked about what added value the visa center offered, VFS Global representative Shrinarayan Sankaran said the company invested a lot into building modern centers, providing trained and polite staff, setting up a call center and website with information and offering bonus services like free photocopies.
Outi Istalo, a diplomat at the Finish embassy, explained the service is being outsourced to improve the conditions for visa applicants and get rid of the emblematic queues. It is normal that VFS charges a fee, she claimed. “Nothing is for free, and they have services we cannot provide: making photos, providing photocopies,” Istalo said.
The key issue is whether the option to apply directly in consulates remains open in accord with EU legislation, Kuzio said.
Poland’s Consul General Rafal Wolski was adamant this would be the case. But in other embassies the situation is not so clear.
While Italy, for instance, advertises this possibility on its website – highlighted and in plain sight – other embassies appear to try to conceal this option and make it inconvenient.
When contacted by a reporter posing as a visa applicant, the contact center of the German embassy informed that it was possible to register for a visa interview at the embassy through a call center or online for Hr 50 or by showing up at the embassy’s visa department between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays. In turn, France offers to set the date for free, but only through the private call center.
Those who are eager to use visa centers and pay Hr 265 service charge can chose a date in few days or weeks. But those who want to apply directly to the German or French embassies and not to pay a charge have to wait two months for the closest date available.
Concerns have also been raised about the security of personal data handled by VFS Global. In 2005 an Indian applicant for a United Kingdom visa alerted VFS Global and the British government that a flaw in the system allowed him to access other people’s data. It was not until 2007, however, that an investigation by Britain’s Channel 4 TV station brought the issue to the spotlight, highlighting failures that had allowed for 50,000 identities to be revealed.
In response, VFS Global ramped up its security system, adopting the international standard of having Internet security under explicit managerial control.
Every 10th Schengen visa issued in 2010 was for a Ukrainian, according to Europe without Barriers. That puts Ukraine after Russia, which gobbles up close to a third of all visas, but ahead of China.
Kyiv Post staff writers Oksana Faryna and Jakub Parusinski can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]
