Sofia deteriorated on a key criterion.
As of Saturday, Croatian citizens are already traveling to the United States without visas, while Bulgaria is abruptly moving away from free travel to America. Croatia has been included in the Visa Waver program, which is a comprehensive security partnership between the United States and participating countries.
The program provides the opportunity for citizens of a country to travel for business and tourist purposes in the United States for up to 90 days without the need for a visa. Thus, after Croatia, and before that Poland, met the criteria for visa-free entry into the United States, only three EU countries remained outside – Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus.
To be included in a Visa Waver, a country must meet criteria related to the fight against terrorism, the rule of law, immigration, document security and border management, and the visa refusal rate must be below 3%.
Croatia has fulfilled the last condition, after the percentage of rejected visas for its citizens in 2020 was 2.69%. For Croats, the reduction of refusals is significant in the last 2 years, because in 2019 it was 4.02%, and a year earlier – 5.92%.
“Croatia’s membership in the so-called visa waiver program is an important step in further strengthening economic and security co-operation between the two countries,” the US embassy in Zagreb said.
Against this background, Bulgaria has seriously deteriorated its criteria and can hardly hope to catch up with Croatia and Poland. Data from the State Department show that in 2020 the share of rejected visa applications for Bulgarians in category B – short trips for tourism or business has increased instead of decreased and is currently 12.52%. This is an increase of nearly 3%, after in 2019 the percentage was 9.75.
Until last year, things looked good, as in 2018 the refused visas for our country were 11.32%, and in 2017 – 14.97%. Years ago, former Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva cunningly proposed reducing the percentage. She called on Bulgarian citizens with a good visa file to apply for a US visa, which would reduce the share of refusals by the US embassy, and with it the last barrier to free travel to the United States.
There is also a large increase in refusals in Cyprus – from 2.78% in 2019 to 6.21% in 2020. Romania is also moving away from the visa-free regime – visa refusals in 2019 were 9.11%, and in 2020 – 10.14%. Earlier this year, official documents showed that the United States had a requirement on Bulgarian authorities before Bulgaria became part of the visa waiver program.
According to the information, the State Department has demanded that our country stop the practice of giving citizenship and passports for money. The American side insisted that Bulgarian passports be issued only to bona fide citizens who do not pose a threat to US internal security, EURACTIV claims. Exactly 2 weeks ago, the European Parliament once again called on the United States to abolish the visa regime for Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania.
