For Ukrainians it’s easier to get Spanish visa than Italian one

The hardest visas to get for Ukrainians are Italian and Czech one, the easiest - Spanish and Greek visas, such are the results of the study "Visa practice of the EU in Ukraine. Results of the public monitoring 2012".

As ForUm correspondent reports, the study results were presented at the press conference in Kyiv on Monday.

In particular, according to the head of the "Europe without barriers" organization Iryna Sushko,
monitoring of the existing rules and regulations of the EU and Schengen visa practice was conducted in summer of 2012.

According to her, the consulates applicants were interviewed in Kyiv (1300 people) and regions (900), the consuls and staff of 23 consulates in Ukraine were interviewed as well.

 

"The subject of monitoring is the practice of visas issuing, as well as determining the quality of the implementation of the Agreement on visa facilitation and certain provisions of the EU Visa Code. The study found differences in the visa policy," Sushko said.

She noted that the data obtained allowed to "join the EU consulates in four conditional baskets".

 

"According to the study, Italy, Czech Republic and the Great Britain have problem visa policy, Germany, France, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Slovenia and the Netherlands have contrast policy, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Portugal, Denmark have  neutral visa policy. Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Estonia have friendly consular practice," the expert said.

In addition, there are two categories more - "the leaders of progress and leaders of concerns". "The first category includes countries, which consular offices demonstrate the movement towards more friendly standards. These are Spain and Greece.

The policy of the Consulate of Italy arises concern. The total time and efforts required to obtain an Italian visa is the highest," Sushko explained and added that the Czech Republic also demonstrates a very low percentage of long-term visas issuance and high failure rate.

"Britain, which is not part of the Schengen area, arises a separate concern as it avoids systemic steps to simplify the visa practice, conducting the most closed and non-transparent visa policy in the EU," Sushko summed up.