The European Union Council has recently decided to revoke certain provisions in the visa code for Gambian citizens.
According to the press release published on The Council’s website last Thursday, The Gambia’s authorities haven’t cooperated satisfactorily with the European Union on readmission matters. Specifically, they’re accused of not taking back the Gambian nationals that have been found illegally staying in countries of the Union.
Aleš Hojs, Minister for the Interior of Slovenia, declared that “No migration policy can function without the effective return of those who don’t have the right to stay. All countries have an obligation under international law to the readmission of their own nationals and we expect this obligation to be fulfilled.”
The European Union updated the visa code in 2019. Since then, the European Union has been allowed to ask the third countries for cooperation on the readmission of their nationals. The Commission frequently evaluates the efforts of these countries to actually repatriate the returnees. In July 2021, the Commission determined that Gambian authorities weren’t collaborating as expected. This is why it proposed the intervention of the Council to make the visa code stricter for Gambian citizens, at least temporarily, in order to regulate the situation.
In the official document implementing the Council’s decision, it is said that the African country confirmed the existence of “a moratorium on forced return or repatriation until after the elections in December” in June 2021. The document also states that the Commission has dialogued with Gambian authorities in the course of several meetings to reach an agreement, but only achieved “fluctuating levels of cooperation”.
Therefore, it took the decision of momentarily interrupting some benefits for Gambian citizens, such as the multiple-entry visas and the two weeks processing period mentioned in Article 23(1) of the visa code. The latter revocation dismisses the ordinance on the prolongation of this period to 45 days maximum.
Additionally, the renunciation fees for those with service and diplomatic passports are no longer optional for Gambian nationals. And finally, visa applicants won’t be able to relinquish the requirements regarding the documents they must submit.
The main exceptions for the new policy are the Gambian nationals who do not require a visa and the Gambian nationals who are family members of legal residents of the European Union.
As for the countries that are subject to the resolution, the document mentions Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Malta, Greece, Estonia, Germany, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Portugal, Cyprus, Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Romania, and the Netherlands. Denmark’s authorities are currently not adopting the suspensions but they have up to six months to give a final word on the Council’s decision.
Given that the resolution is part of the Schengen acquis, the legislation that affects the countries in the Schengen Area, Ireland is directly excluded from the adoption of the decision.
Other resolutions are currently being discussed within the European Union Council, as the Commission has also prompted its participation in new visa restrictions applying to Bangladesh and Iraq nationals.
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