Talk:Visa requirements for European Union citizens

Australia not requiring visa is misleading

The map and the table below lists Australia as not requiring a visa for entry. This is because the map and table only considers "physical" visas, and for some reason ignoring electronic visas, which is obviously odd and definitely inconsistent with the page Visa policy of Australia ("every non-citizen in Australia must have a visa, either as a result of an application, or one granted automatically by law.") as well as Visa (document). I believe listing a country as "visa free" when it clearly requires a visa only because the required visa happens to be digital, may be extremely misleading to many people. 89.160.106.254 (talk) 22:24, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

It is listed as visa-free because the European Commission sees it as visa-free access - [1]--Twofortnights (talk) 11:24, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

This whole page seems wrongheaded (along with the others in the family of pages) -- as a traveller I don't care whether the country in question thinks of the current entry scheme as a 'visa' or a 'visa waiver' or an 'electronic travel authorisation', it's still obligatory bureaucratic hoop-jumping. Ironically, those countries that require 'visa' but will issue them at the point of entry can be less cumbersome than the 'visa-free pre-registered travel-authorisation at least 48-hours in advance please' exceptions. What are visitors to this page hoping to learn? --PJJH — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.12.222.2 (talk) 11:32, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree but the article has to adhere to the Wikipedia:No original research which means not our personal opinion but what the verifiable sources say.--Twofortnights (talk) 17:49, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

French regions and collectivities / OCTs

The French regions of Guadeloupe, Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte and Réunion are NOT "overseas countries and territories" of the EU. They are "outermost regions". As "outermost regions" they form part of the EU. Other outermost regions of the EU are Spain's Canary Islands and the Portuguese territories of Azores and Madeira.

Saint Martin is NOT a "region" of France, but a "collectivity". It forms part of the EU, too. The freedom of movement provisions apply to all of those territories - as they are part of the EU

The EU's "overseas countries and territories" are...

Denmark: Greenland

France: French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Southern and Antarctic Lands, Wallis and Futuna.

Netherlands: Aruba, Caribbean Netherlands (Bonaire, Saba, Sint Eustatius), Curacao, Sint Maarten.

United Kingdom: All British overseas territories but Gibraltar.

The "overseas countries and territories" are not part of the EU. The freedom of movement provisions do not apply.

The only exception is French Saint Barthélemy (which, in 2012, changed its status from "outermost region" to "OCT"). It is the only OCT to which the freedom of movement provisions apply - according to the "European Council Decision of 29 October 2010".Knisfo (talk) 20:34, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

"British citizens only"

@Twofortnights

"why do you think this refers to member states?"

Because the sentence starts with "Current member states of the European Union are ..." - and it ends with "United Kingdom (British Citizens only)"

That sounds like "British Citizens" is a country or something within the UK. Like: "United Kingdom (England and Wales only)".

What you want to say is that "British citizens only" are EU citizens - unlike others.

"why are you removing the information about the classes of British citizenship"

I didn't. I changed your "British citizens only" to "British citizens who are not nationals of the United Kingdom for the purposes of union law".Knisfo (talk) 20:56, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

... talking about EU citizenship and freedom of movement.Knisfo (talk) 21:03, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "British citizens who are not nationals of the United Kingdom for the purposes of union law", it's a typo in the visa-free decision by the EU but normally all British citizens are EU citizens, as British Overseas Citizens and BOTCs are not a subgroup of British citizens.--Twofortnights (talk) 21:13, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Citizens of the British overseas territories have to right to be issued a British passport - as they are considered British citizens, yes.

But in addition they hold citizenship of their respective territory.

Holding your "Bermuda passport" in hands - you are one of the "British citizens who are not nationals of the United Kingdom for the purposes of union law"

Holding your "British passport" in hands - you are an EU citizen.Knisfo (talk) 21:25, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

No, holding your Bermuda passport you are a British Overseas Territories Citizen not the British citizen. Using the "British citizens" as a generic term for all classes while possible could be very confusing given that one of the classes is called the same way - British citizens. The EU ignored this in that decision but it caused issues right here on Wikipedia so the Schengen Visa policy article now says " British nationals who are not nationals of the United Kingdom for the purposes of European Union law" instead of the official EU wording "BRITISH CITIZENS WHO ARE NOT NATIONALS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND FOR THE PURPOSES OF UNION LAW".--Twofortnights (talk) 21:31, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

"Using the "British citizens" [...] while possible [...]"

...and the EU obviously deems it possible.

This article talks about the EU, about the EU's regulations (dealing with visas or freedom of movement).

When talking about the EU's regulations - make use of the EU's language.

Rewording them would be interpreting them - and that wouldn't be neutral.Knisfo (talk) 21:54, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

"British citizens who ..." is indeed the language of that visa decision.

But the article's sentence we are talking about is about freedom of movement.

What do the EU's directives dealing with freedom of movement say ?

Maybe in those directives the wording is different.Knisfo (talk) 22:14, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

The UK naming system is paramount here. Transferring typos and errors is not neutrality.--Twofortnights (talk) 23:36, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

When the EU makes laws, and if the UK is bound by those laws (,because of the EU having exclusive competence in the policy area concerned,) - then the EU "naming system is paramount here".

When talking about UK laws - use the UK laws' wording.

When talking about EU laws - use the EU laws' wording.

That visa decision affects the Schengen Area, which the UK is not part of. It doesn't affect the UK - the UK didn't name anything related to that visa decision. It was an EU decision.

"Transferring typos"

Even if those "typos" were really typos...

Those typos were agreed upon, those typos entered into force, those typos are applied - those typos are law now.

If something was not in line with those typos, it wouldn't be in line with the laws they are part of.

As holders of passports of the BOTs are not denied entry to the Schengen Area - the wording of those regulations seems to be fine.

---

anyways ... The language of documents related to visas is not important here - as we are talking about freedom of movement. Its the language of documents related to freedom of movement that matters here.

I wrote:

"What do the EU's directives dealing with freedom of movement say ?"

As you still speak of "transferring typos" - i assume you checked those directives.

So ... what do those directives say ?

(Now your turn to produce sources.)Knisfo (talk) 02:39, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

No it's exactly the opposite, not only that the EU has no exclusive competence over the matter, the EU has no legal powers over citizenship legislation in member states at all, that is widely known, that is why they couldn't do anything about this [2] when it was said that "Citizenship is a matter for national governments". So the UK naming system for their citizenship classes remains paramount. As I've told you already using "British citizens" to group all classes of British citizenship can be very confusing because "British citizens" is one of those classes, there needs to be additional clarification. EU directives on freedom of movement are not written by listing various countries like the visa list, they only say it applies to EU citizens and the member states decide further, that's how the UK decided that Gibraltar citizens are also the EU citizens but Bermudans are not despite both being BOTs. Again national legislation prevails as it is the citizenship matter.--Twofortnights (talk) 08:46, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

"the EU has no legal powers over citizenship legislation in member states at all"

That's not what I said. I didn't say anything about the EU being involved in "citizenship legislation".

I said: "That visa decision affects the Schengen Area; which the UK is not part of. [...] It was an EU decision."Knisfo (talk) 11:41, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Gibraltar citizens are EU citizens because Gibraltar is part of the EU (via the UK's membership). They are EU citizens under union law. Bermuda is not in the EU - Bermuda citizens are not EU citizens.Knisfo (talk) 11:48, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Well yes that's the point, you just repeated what I said. But the main point is that it is the UK which decided that Gibraltar is part of the EU and that Bermuda isn't.--Twofortnights (talk) 14:17, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Edits of this date

After checking a few links, and finding many broken, I ran the:

• Checklinks
• reFill

tools, the evidence of which is present in the edit summaries. At present:

• There are 47 remaining dead URLs, as identified by Checklinks, and
• Over 100 bare URL citations were filled using reFill (112 to be precise).

Even so, the article remains a shambles of dead end, dated, and unsourced information, with further dead URLs certainly to crop up if a manual, line by line review were to be done (automated does not, by far, catch all issues, only the obvious ones).

This is an article, were I a dedicated and active editor for it, in which I would start from the top, and to a thorough re-write and re-sourcing, top to bottom. As it stands, the information this article contains cannot be viewed other than with suspicion as to its being up-to-date and accurate. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 19:48, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Bare URL citations remaining

The following bare URL citations cannot be autofilled, and must be worked through manually:

1. EUROPEAN COUNCIL DECISION of 29 October 2010 amending the status with regard to the European Union of the island of Saint-Barthélemy No title is found
2. http://www.kenyaembassy.com/pdfs/visa.pdf No title is found
3. The following Countries do NOT require a VISA to enter the Kingdom of Swaziland No title is found
4. http://www.foreign.gov.bb/UserFiles/File/June%202012.pdf No title is found
5. Agreement between the European Union and the Commonwealth of Dominica on the short-stay visa waiver No title is found
6. Agreement between the European Union and Grenada on the short-stay visa waiver No title is found
7. Agreement between the European Union and Saint Lucia on the short-stay visa waiver No title is found
8. Agreement between the European Union and St. Vincent and the Grenadines on the short-stay visa waiver No title is found
9. Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago on the short-stay visa waiver No title is found
10. http://www.mfa.gov.bz/images/documents/Visa%20Requirements%20for%20Belize%20December%202013%20-Web%20version.pdf No title is found
11. http://www.boliviabella.com/support-files/bolivia-visa-group-1.pdf No title is found
12. http://sistemas.mre.gov.br/kitweb/datafiles/CgWashington/en-us/file/Quadrovistos.pdf No title is found
13. http://www.mre.gov.py/v1/Adjuntos/Supresion-de-Visas-actualizado-setiembre-2012.pdf Processing error (Fetching error)
14. http://www.mrree.gub.uy/frontend/page?1,inicio,ampliacion-ppal,O,es,0,PAG;CONC;73;3;D;lista-de-paises-exonerados-de-visa;3;PAG; No title is found
15. http://www.mfa.go.th/main/contents/files/services-20140710-094347-873017.pdf No title is found
16. Agreement between the European Union and the United Arab Emirates on the short-stay visa waiver No title is found
17. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA_Graphics/MFA%20Gallery/Consular%20forms/VisaRequirements.pdf No title is found
18. http://mfa.gov.by/upload/17.01.11_list_states_eng.pdf No title is found
19. Agreement between the European Union and the independent State of Samoa on the short-stay visa waiver No title is found
20. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:a73fc0a9-fd67-11e5-b713-01aa75ed71a1.0010.02/DOC_1&format=PDF No title is found
21. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:a73fc0a9-fd67-11e5-b713-01aa75ed71a1.0010.02/DOC_2&format=PDF No title is found
22. Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Vanuatu on the short-stay visa waiver No title is found
23. http://www.immigration.gov.pg/images/documents/High_Risk_Country_Visa_Requirements_5.pdf No title is found
24. http://www.boliviabella.com/support-files/bolivia-visa-group-2.pdf No title is found
25. https://www.migration.gov.rw/fileadmin/templates/PDF_files/news/COMMUNIQUE_ON_UPDATED_VISA_REGIME.pdf No title is found
26. http://www.mfa.gov.tr/data/KONSOLOSLUK/vize-harc-miktarlari-en.pdf No title is found
27. https://www.timaticweb.com/cgi-bin/tim_website_client.cgi?FullText=1&COUNTRY=VN&SECTION=VI&SUBSECTION=00&user=KLMB2C&subuser=KLMB2C No title is found
28. e Service - Hukoomi - Tourist Visa through Qatar Airways Processing error (Fetching error)
29. National Web Portal On Immigration No title is found
30. Guilin offers 72-hour visa-free travel Processing error (Fetching error)

Le Prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 20:17, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Updated, removing completed Timatic citations, that are now  Done. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 23:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Examining these for possible filling

• Visa Entry Requirements No title is found General access restricted.
• CLASIFICACION DE VISAS PARA VIAJAR A PANAMA - TYPES OF VISAS TO TRAVEL INTO PANAMA No title is found Redirect to irrelevant page.
• e Service - Hukoomi - Tourist Visa through Qatar Airways Processing error (Fetching error) Site is an online application questionnaire, not an information page.

Le Prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 20:17, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Updated, these three are now  Done, all of list above remain to be done. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 23:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Inaccurate tagging for inaccuracy

I check this article for any inaccuracy all the time and fail to find any significant inaccuracy. As for the Timatic being a source that is rarely updated, that is not true. Indeed when you click on "CHECK For details, click here - CHECK LATEST NEWS AND UPDATES ON TRAVEL" you won't see that many updates listed. But they are made to the database without special announcement. For example recently Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Vietnam have all made significant changes to their visa policies yet on the recent news of Timatic only Belarus is listed. Nevertheless when you open the database for Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Vietnam you will see that it is 100% up to date. The article also does not rely exclusively on Timatic, it links to the national government pages explaining visa policies as well. Therefore, even though I am sure there might be some inaccuracy in the article somewhere we can not tag it as inaccurate without pointing out what exactly is inaccurate.

As the matter of fact the tag that was placed stated the following "with Timatic reporting 1-3 country changes per month" while in reality "Timatic is maintained by a group of immigration specialists with access to over 1,000 sources worldwide, and is updated on average 53 times per day".[3]

As for the EU expert needed. This article is about visa policies of other countries towards the EU citizens. Therefore an EU expert would be of little use. In addition the article scope doesn't go outside the usual for the articles in the series so I didn't quite get that tag either.

As for the formatting issues, most of the sources are properly formatted therefore it is not appropriate to tag the entire page as suffering from poorly formatted references.--Twofortnights (talk) 11:00, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Mistake in the table or map for South Korea?

In the map showing Visa Requirements, it shows South Korea as visa free for all EU citizens. However, the table below it cites that only Irish citizens do not require a visa, and that all other EU citizens need a visa. Is this a mistake, or a change due to the Covid-19 Pandemic? Hutreb (talk) 10:28, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Wrong explanation

Since years, the USA is not at all visa-free for e.g. EU citizens; an ESTA visa is required, i.e. an electronic visa in advance. Without that it is even impossible to board an airplane to the US.
Since two years, also Australia and New Zealand are no longer visa-free, an electronic visa in advance with additional fees is required, similar to that for the USA. sarang♥사랑 08:15, 25 February 2021 (UTC)