Contact

otwartaeuropa@batory.org.pl
Paweł Bagiński, director
phone: |+48| 22 536 02 79
Joanna Fomina
phone: |+48| 22 536 02 41
Tomasz Horbowski
phone: |+48| 22 536 02 33

See also

www.visa-free-europe.eu Events Friendly Border Publications

Open Europe

The aim of the Friendly EU Border project is to ensure a step-by-step liberalization of the visa regimes in the EU all through to a complete visa-free arrangement with Eastern Partnership countries and Russia.

We have been acting for the introduction of friendly visa solutions for our neighbours since 2002. In the previous years, we monitored the visa policy and the procedures of issuing visas for citizens of Eastern Europe by the countries of the European Union, as well as the conditions of crossing the Union's eastern border. We published the results of our monitoring and research in a series of reports: on the situation on Poland's eastern borders (2003); on the Polish and European visa policies (2004, 2006, 2009); on the situation at Polish border crossings and at border crossings along the European Union's eastern borders (2008) [see Publications]. Our reports were presented during meetings and conferences organised in Poland, on the forum of the EU, in the member states and in the countries of Eastern Europe [see Events]. We used the findings of our research and the resulting conclusions and recommendations in our campaign conducted in Poland and the EU, aimed at making the visa regime less strict and more friendly, as well as at improving the service quality at the EU borders.

Currently, when visa-free travelling to and from chosen East-European countries has officially become the Union's long-term objective, we focus on proposing solutions, which would facilitate the fast fulfilment of the member countries' declaration. We strive for: implementation of the commitments contemplated in the Visa Facilitation Agreements and in the Community Code on Visas; adoption of “road maps” leading to visa-free travel; designing special solutions for Belarus, which has not signed Visa Facilitation Agreement; lifting visa fees for Eastern Partnership countries and Russia. We try to provide arguments for liberalisation of the visa policy, and to alleviate fears and reservations which may occur in EU member countries, about the perspective of visa-free travel, particularly those related to massive flows of Eastern European migrants to the old member states.

In our advocacy efforts we explore a variety of methods of getting the message across to decision-makers in European institutions and in member states. We regularly review progress in visa liberalization, organize meetings, conferences and seminars, publish reports on the study of major visa policy change requirements, circulate exhibitions and dispatch postcard with photos of applicants from the consulates in Eastern Partnership countries.

We promote the idea of visa liberalisation at the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum established at the European Commission with the mandate to influence EU institutions and national governments during their decision-making process where we coordinate the work of the Visa Facilitation subgroup. In our work we cooperate with organizations and institutions from EU member state and the countries of Eastern Europe with whom we formed in 2010 the Coalition for a European Continent Undivided by Visa Barriers.


Copyright © Fundacja Batorego
Print
Up