GUWonder

According to the European Commission, for countries to qualify for a waiver from EU/Schengen visa requirements, those countries must meet 72 criteria.

What are the 72 criteria for countries to qualify?

Apparently, Turkey only currently meets 19 of the "required" 72 criteria.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/eu-wont-wa...083207011.html

WorldLux

To quote:
You can find more in the following report of the European Commission Click

In any case, the situation has considerably changed since. Today Erdogan is in a position, that allows him to pressure the EU into giving Turkish citizen access to the VWP of the EU. Otherwise the EU-Turkey agreement (aka Merkel's baby) will fall through and the political elite would make a fool of themselves.

GUWonder

Thanks.

Now need to come up with what are the specific 72 as distributed amongst the document security, migration management, public order/security, fundamental rights, and readmission of irregular migrants categories.

cdn1

turkey should stop trying to go into Schengen. What's with the desperation

GUWonder

Some countries want their nationals to have more chances to exercise the freedom of movement.

I like it when countries try to advance the ease of international travel for their own nationals.

cafeconleche

Well, it's more like a matter of national pride to have visa-free access to the bloc protected by NATO, with Turkey having the second largest presence.

GUWonder

It's a matter of national pride for some indeed.

WilcoRoger

They don't and it won't happen for a very long time. What they try to do is to secure visa free entry for their citizens - totally different thing.

GUWonder

Turkey claims to be basically almost there in meeting the 72 things to get the EU/Schengen visa liberalization/waiver, and the European Commission is slated to recommend Turkey be approved for EU/Schengen visa waiver:

http://in.reuters.com/article/europe...-idINKCN0XV0TO

König

I wonder if Erdogan's strong rebuttal of EU's criticism of Turkish anti-terrorist laws (i.e., "you go your way and we'll go ours") will have any impact on the visa-free agreement that is all but inevitable?

GUWonder

Turkey has issues with EU countries not using EU national anti-terrorism laws against organizations that Turkey considers to be terrorist organizations under Turkish anti-terrorism laws. But I doubt that Erdogan thinks the EU visa waiver agreement for Turkish passport users would be genuine and all that enduring, even as both sides involved in that seem to have prickly issues to deal with in the name of "anti-terrorism" and even beyond that.

cafeconleche

I think this idea that Turkey must meet all the criteria is complete bull. Does Mexico meet them all? I don't think so, yet Mexicans need no visas for Schengen...

GUWonder

The EU seems to be trying hard to dominate some aspects of Turkey's domestic policies, and as a result the East-West border control for visa waiver deal is walking on the cliff's edge:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/erdogan-r...101135321.html

I never expected the EU/Schengen countries to agree to opening the visa waiver door more widely to Turkey. Rather I expected the deal to be just a way to string along Turkey while never really moving fully ahead in delivering to Turkey. Old habits/pattern continue, and this is in line with the EU-Turkey dynamics that has been going on for many years. While the dynamic will eventually change, I am not holding my breath waiting for it to change anytime soon to deliver Schengen visa waiver to Turkish citizens in the main.

It will be interesting to see what ends up happening at the Turkish-EU borders once this deal is sunk.

WorldLux

They'll be where they started.

And whether or not the 72 criteria are necessary, it would be in the best interest of Erdogan to pull it back a little and put Turkey back on a more liberal course. The tourist sector is tanking. So is TK and flyPegasus.

GUWonder

I wouldn't be so certain about the first paragraph above.

International tourism to Turkey is going to remain under pressure regardless of what Erdogan does. And I'm personally no less concerned about border guards in Eastern/Central Europe shooting ethnic minorities engaged in legal travel within the Schengen Zone than I'm about Turkey going crazy in the name of border control too. Perhaps when Junker lectures the French and Belgians and other non-Visegrad Schengen countries about police actions taken in the name of counterterrorism security or even law enforcement, then Erdogan won't be able to claim hypocrisy as a defence.

Not a big deal to me, but your post has attributed my words to someone else.