Further 50 million people can travel to the EU without visa

As turizmusonline.hu reports, the European Union has decided on the abolition of the visa-obligation of Ukrainian and Georgian citizens.

After long discussions, the representatives of the member states of the EU and the members of the European Parliament have agreed on giving Ukrainian and Georgian citizens visa freedom, however, it can be suspended in case of emergency or concerns for emergency. This way 45 million Ukrainian and 5 million Georgian citizens can enter the Schengen Area without a visa.

An interesting addition is that the majority of Schengen visa-requests are from Russia: nearly 3.5 million requests were handed in by Russian citizens in 2015 (and the ratio of rejection is the lowest, only 1.3 %). They are followed by the Chinese with nearly 2.4 million visa requests (with the rejection ratio of 2.8 %) then the Ukrainians come with 1.1 million requests and a 3.4 % rejection. The Turkish are ranked fourth: they handed in 860,000 visa requests in 2015, 3.9 % of them were rejected.

How visa freedom can be suspended in the future

The temporary suspension of visa freedom can be ordained by the initiative of the simple-majority of the member-states or the European Commission, without the involvement of the European Parliament. The change must be formally approved by the plenum of the European Parliament and the council of the ministers.