Visa restrictions thwart trips abroad

 They are submitting a prodigious amount of paperwork to go on holiday, visit friends or family, study or work abroad – opportunities which are taken for granted by most people in the European Union.

While EU citizens travel visa­free to Kyiv for up to 90 days, some Ukrainians need the same amount of time just for the application to go abroad.

A crew of the historic Cossack boat Chaika waited for two months to sail out of Ukraine to the International Maritime Festival in France this summer. To showcase their vessel among 2,000 other heritage ships from all over the world, President Victor Yushchenko ordered the Cabinet to smooth their journey abroad. But even his word was not enough to override the intricacies of a visa procedure.

“Every week the Foreign Ministry was asking for more paperwork from us. I don’t know if the French Consulate or the ministry is to blame but we received our passes when the competition was over!” a complaining captain Roman Ros said of his visa ordeal.

“I cannot think of another name for this process other than stupidity. We were building this Cossack boat for three and a half years to represent Ukraine at the international level but failed the French mission because of messy traveling rules,” Ros added.

When Ukrainians spend longer waiting for a visa than they would on a ship to France, something has gone wrong.

To reciprocate Ukraine’s policy of open borders to the citizens of the EU, European officials ratified a visa facilitation agreement with Ukraine at the start of 2008.

Businessmen, journalists, students, sportsmen and close relatives of people living abroad expected preferential treatment as a part of this agreement. Yet half a year into the new deal, people continue complaining to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of long queues in the consulates, excessive documents required for a visa and treatment from Foreign Service personnel.

“Despite common procedures envisaged by a new visa agreement, the German consulate is required to explain reasons of a visa rejection whereas in French and Czech consulates it is not a rule,” said expert Iryna Sushko from the Center of Peace, Conversion and Foreign Politics, describing confusion among Ukrainians. She explained that member states apply their own laws to the issues not covered by the agreement discouraging many visa seekers from applying.

German Consul Christiane Hullman said that it is difficult to make all 24 member states issue visas like a well­oiled machine. Nevertheless, she praised the new agreement for reducing fees to 35 euros while other countries still pay twice the amount. “Every third visa is given for free and we are issuing more long­term visas than before,” she commented on the benefits of the simplified procedures.

The German consulate rejected over 5,000 applicants out of 65,000 from the beginning of the year. Falsified documents and insufficient means of travel were among the main reasons for rejection. “It’s always best to tell us your real story…There are fears of illegal migration in the Western Europe,” explained Hullman about the difficulties with entering Germany.

The Foreign Ministry estimated that two million Ukrainians are working illegally abroad.

And with the help of “Iryna” their number is rising monthly.

Her late husband, a former diplomat, left his business of forging travel documents to her. With the help of special chemicals she is wiping out rejection stamps off the passport pages and replaces them with valid visas.

“In summer I help up to 20 people each month through my connections in the embassies. But it’s getting more difficult each year.”

Iryna charges from $5,000 per visa depending on the difficulty of each inquiry. She is a small link in the chain of illegal migration but her activity helps to understand the prejudice against Ukrainians in foreign consulates.

Yet tarring everyone with the same brush may result in cultural isolation. Facing a storm of complaints, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine offered to hold a joint visa committee with the EU to discuss issues with the Schengen visas in October.

“We have handed the EU a special document, in which we listed specific cases of violations during the implementation of the agreement on the simplified visa procedure,” Deputy Foreign Minister Kostyantun Yeliseyev told wire services.

“Most people who traveled abroad from Ukraine experienced blunt disrespect, unsubstantiated demands and humiliating treatment from foreign embassies and consulates,” said brothers Vitaly and Dymtro Kapranov, popular Ukrainian writers who have launched a public campaign calling on everyone to vote against foreign brutality on their website www.cultura.net.ua

So far Spain is ahead of everyone else in the poll to get the Golden Muzzle award for causing the most resentment to its applicants. Apart from the usual hassle with paperwork, the Spanish consulate requires its visa seekers to report back to the consulate upon their return to Ukraine. Tetyana Kaminska, editor of the interior design magazine Ideas for Your Home, said she was shocked to learn of this “absurd” practice. 

Kaminska said that she wasted two days to give the consulate a photocopy of her passport page with a customs’ stamp proving that she was back from Spain.

“When I came on the first day, a guard told me to come at 8am the next day… When I arrived the following morning, there was a queue of 50 people all standing on the other side of the road because apparently a pavement in front of the consulate is a taboo zone,” she described the beginning of her ordeal. By five o’clock in the evening she said that she was finally invited to come in. “At the door, however, they told me that I can’t proceed further with my female purse. So I was forced to leave it across the road in a luggage room for Hr 5.”

When Kaminskaya reached a clerk’s window after eight hours of waiting, a visa section official asked her if she liked Spain. “No, I didn’t,” she said thinking of the chaos with visas in Ukraine.