6 new countries Schengen visa free from May 28th 2009

[bluechilli]

From May 28th 2009, citizens of Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Mauritius, Barbados and Seychelles dont need a Schengen visa to visit EU. (ecvisawaiver.wordpress.com)

We need you to share your experience with passport control on this forum or on the ecvisawaiver.wordpress.com blog, if you are a citizen from the 6 islands.

Thanks for your time

[runie80]

Vice-President Jacques Barrot, Commissioner responsible for Justice, Freedom and Security, declared: " Today the first ever visa waiver agreements concluded by the European Community are signed. As from today the nationals of Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Mauritius, Barbados and Seychelles and the citizens of the EU can travel without a short-stay visa to each others' territories. I hope the visa-free travel will contribute to the improvement of people to people contacts between the citizens of both parties. "

The agreements provide for visa-free travel for the citizens of the European Union and for the citizens of the six countries – holders of all passports (diplomatic, service and ordinary) – between their territories for stays not exceeding three months. The agreements cover all categories of travellers, except for the category of persons travelling for the purpose of carrying out a paid activity, for whom each Member State and also the six countries remain free to impose the visa requirement in accordance with applicable Community or national law.

In order to make citizens benefit from the visa-free travel as soon as possible, the agreements are provisionally applied from the date of today's signature, 28 May 2009.

About 800.000 European citizens travel to these countries per year.

sounds good to me

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAct ... anguage=en

[tt]

Interesting, this action brings the Schengen visafree regime closer to the UK one.

And along with the UK actions recently, which make (from 1 July, 2009) South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Bolivia (and earlier, Jamaica and Zimbabwe) citizens all need a visa in advance to visit the UK, it looks like we are beginning to see a merger of ideas between the UK and the Schengen countries.

Differences still outstanding between the visa regime of the UK and of Schengen are the following:-

1. visiting UK no visa needed/visiting Schengen visa needed - citizens of:-

Asia: Taiwan, Maldives.
West Indies: Belize, Dominica, St Lucia, St Vincent, Trinidad.
Pacific Islands: Kiribati, Nauru, PapuaNG, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Marshall Isl, Micronesia, Palau.
Africa: Botswana, Namibia.

2. visiting UK visa needed/visiting Schengen no visa needed - citizens of:-

Vatican City.

(Apologies in advance if you see any inaccuracies).

Actually, as a side point, does anyone know why the Ireland and UK visa regimes are different given the Common Free Area?
South Africans, for example, can still travel to Ireland without a visa. Doesn't that lead to complications?

[tt]

Apparently, Botswana, Brazil, Malaysia, Mauritius, Namibia, and Trinidad and Tobago are on "thin ice"...

The UK visa regulations for South Africans (they all need a visa now) are now in place (1 July 2009).