Comments and Recommendations of the Standing Committee On

ITALIAN SENATE

Comments and Recommendations of the Standing Committee on

European Union Policies

of 7 July 2010

on

Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union amending Regulation (EC) No 539/2001 listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders of Member States and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement (COM(2010) 256 final)

Rapporteur: PEDICA

The Committee, following consideration of the aforementioned Document,

[…]

expresses a favourable opinion, in so far as its remit is concerned, with the following qualifications:

the legal basis is properly identified, because the proposal is part of the common policy on visas under Article 77(2)(a) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, whereby the European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, adopt measures concerning the common policy on visas and other short-stay residence permits;

no remarks are made on the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, although no compliance issues should arise here, in that the Commission considers that this proposal, insofar as it develops from the common policy on visas, is "exclusive competence" of the European Union under Article 77(2)(a) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union;

in this connection, it should be recalled that Article 4(2)(j) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union establishes that "shared competence" between the Union and Member States applies in the area of freedom, security and justice, of which the common policy on visas is part; it would therefore be appropriate for the Commission either to provide justification for the claim of exclusive competence or to delete such claim altogether, also in view of the fact that it might seem inconsistent with the right decision to submit the proposal to the procedure pursuant to Protocol no 2 on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality;

on the substance of the proposal, it should be underlined that the liberalisation of visas with Albania and Bosnia and Hercegovina is a consequence of the pre-accession negotiations underway between the European Union and Western Balkan countries and is consistent with the obligation taken by the Union towards the liberalisation of short-stay visas for the citizens of all Western Balkan countries in the framework of the Thessaloniki agenda, in view of the progress made since December 2009 in the negotiations on the liberalisation of the visa regime with Albania and Bosnia and Hercegovina, where those countries have met most benchmarks set out in their corresponding roadmaps;

in this connection, the Committee emphasizes that such countries should ensure compliance with all the benchmarks – especially relating to illegal immigration, public policy and security, the European Union's external relations with third countries, implications of regional coherence and reciprocity – by and after the date of adoption of the regulation envisaging visa liberalisation for their nationals in Schengen area countries;

the Committee finally underlines that regulation (EC) no 539/2001 establishes that visa liberalisation for countries meeting the required criteria is subject to a mechanism enabling a principle of reciprocity to be implemented if one of the third countries included in Annex II to that Regulation decides to make the nationals of one or more Member States subject to the visa obligation.

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