GUWonder

ETIAS was publicly proposed in 2016 after years of Europeans fuming about ESTA, and even after the US was suggesting that EUropean countries do the same as the US with an EUropean equivalent of ESTA. [We got the Canadians to follow the same course with their own version of ESTA for EUropean and other visa-waived visitors to Canada, but they get their projects done more “efficiently” than EUropeans.]

The MEP and physical visa thing was being sought by some as a result of the US Congress pushing to make physical US visas required for EUropean VWP nationals who had visited Iran, Syria, and so on. The post-2016 EP move that ended up aborted in essence was not a result of ESTA — it was a result of the US Congress wanting to block/slow down those VWP country nationals who had ties to a set of blacklisted countries and making say French, Dutch, German and Swedish Iranians/Iraqis/Syrians/Sudanese dual-citizens have to apply in person for US visas when previously they did not when using such EU countries’ passports.

I referred to former Soviet bloc and non-Soviet block Balkan countries in the EU, with regard to EU countries which have some history of being excluded from the US VWP during at least part of the US VWP’s time. That includes Greece and only left out Cyprus — the latter not exactly a country with much clout in the EU beyond what the Greek-Turkish divide gives it.