By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS
London : The Schengen visa, which allows tourists to visit European countries without having to show their papers each time, is to be expanded Friday to include nine new countries, but Britain still won’t be among them.
The Schengen zone, which does not include Britain and Ireland, will be joined by nine new countries Friday – Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta. Switzerland is set to join in 2008, becoming the 25th Schengen state.
The existing parties to the Schengen Agreement are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
The Schengen visa, which can be obtained from the diplomatic missions of any one of the member-countries, allows foreigners to travel freely within these European countries without having to show their passport at the border every time.
Friday’s expansion will make little difference for European, American and Japanese citizens as they can already freely travel within Europe.
Europe is particularly keen to attract tourists from India, China and Russia. Already, Indian visitors to London last year outstripped those from Japan for the first time.
Luigi Cabrini, World Tourist Organisation (WTO) regional representative for Europe, said “an important issue for further discussion within the EU is the adoption of a visa policy, aimed at facilitating travel by citizens of third countries, especially taking into account the importance of tourists arriving from emerging markets like China, India and Russia”.
Britain and the Irish Republic are the only two European countries who have opted out of the 1985 Schengen Agreement.
The expansion has been hailed by tour operators but it was criticised Wednesday by Britain’s opposition Conservative Party, which said it could trigger a new wave of immigration from Eastern Europe.
“It is obvious that this will lead to increased illegal immigration if left unchecked,” the party’s home affairs spokesperson David Davis warned.
An attempt by British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to secure a say for Britain in the policing of the European Union’s eastern borders failed Tuesday.
The European Court in Luxembourg ruled that since Britain is not a member of the Schengen system, it has no right to a vote on how the Schengen borders are controlled.