For most travelers from the United States, traveling to Europe is relatively smooth and there is no need to apply for a visa or pay high fees for a short stay.
But for people like Duygu Yildirim, this is not the case. Yildirim, 36, holds a Turkish passport and lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. He is within Europe’s Schengen Area, a border-free zone that allows free movement between 27 European countries, Turkish citizens, and dozens of other countries, including India, South Africa, and Turkey. In China, you must apply for a visa for stays of less than 90 days.
The application process is expensive, anxiety-inducing, and time-consuming. A visa costs 80 euros (approximately $85) each time you visit Europe and requires an in-person appointment and hard copies of various legal documents. Such appointments are typically contracted out to commercial companies, but have become rare in recent months. Travelers also say it takes longer than the usual three weeks to obtain a visa, and in some cases months. The applicant did not receive the visa in time for the trip or did not receive the visa for the entire duration of the trip. Some have been denied visas altogether.
Yildirim, an assistant professor, said he has applied for at least 10 Schengen visas in recent years. She doesn’t have a visa center in her area, so if she has trouble getting an appointment, she has to go to another state.
In preparation for an academic workshop scheduled in Belgium, Yildirim wrote a letter requesting a short-term visa for at least a few months. That way, she would also save herself the hassle of booking her future work trips to Europe and save her additional fees. However, the visa Belgium granted her was only for five days, slightly longer than her three-day workshop.
“You never know if it’s going to be one month or six months. It’s very arbitrary,” she said.
“It’s very stressful, both financially and emotionally. I’m jealous of people who go to Europe for two days and come back. I don’t have that luxury,” Yildirim said.
Those caught up in these visa problems are forced to change their plans or, like Yildirim, give up on traveling to Europe altogether. Bureaucratic bureaucracy not only caused planning headaches, but also spotlighted unpleasant realities. These fees and inconveniences target specific groups of people, primarily the billions of people around the world who have been given systematically unequal opportunities and access to travel. It means that there is. I live in the Global South.
Elaine, who lives in London and holds a passport from a South Asian country, described applying for a Schengen visa as an “alienating experience” that made her feel like a second-class citizen. . She declined to give her full name, fearing that speaking publicly could jeopardize her future visa application.
“Other people travel very smoothly. You can’t just wake up on the weekend and say it’s a public holiday and let’s go to France,” she said.
Reliance on third-party processing companies
Short-term stay visas are the most commonly used type for tourism and short business trips within the Schengen area. Since 2009, the Schengen Area countries have adopted a common policy requiring nationals of more than 100 countries to apply for these visas. According to the European Commission, this requirement aims to protect borders and ensure the safety of travelers and residents.
Nationals of member states and nationals of many other countries, including the United States, are exempt from this entry requirement.
Although the final stage of entry visa issuance is carried out by governments, most countries have long employed independent contractors, such as BLS International, VFS Global, and TLScontact, to perform the initial screening of visa candidates and other administrative tasks. I went. These companies, with employees and offices around the world, meet with applicants in person and collect biometric data, photos, and other required documents such as medical insurance documents. Applicants typically also need to provide bank statements, receipts for accommodation and flights, and proof of employment. You must also surrender your passport until a visa decision is made.
Yildirim said that even though he had an official invitation to the workshop, the Belgian consulate asked him to provide additional financial documents, including tax returns. The request felt invasive.
“I’m going to invite them, but do they want to see my monthly bank statement?” she said. “They want to make sure I’m not in the country illegally just because I’m Turkish. It’s kind of weird and humiliating to ask how much money I make.”
In addition to the standard government fee per visit, processing companies also typically charge a service fee of approximately 30 euros per application. Other voluntary services, such as passport delivery fees and the option to pay an after-hours booking fee in some cities, can drive costs even higher.
Travelers whose visas are refused generally do not receive a refund.
Rapid increase in demand, decrease in reservations
VFS Global spokesperson Iffat Memon said some European countries are receiving more visa applications than ever before. She stressed that in some areas, demand exceeds the number of available reservations, which is outside the company’s control.
“Decisions regarding visa applications, including availability of appointment slots and visa application processing schedules, are at the sole discretion of each government we serve and may vary from government to government,” Memon said. he said.
Many countries have seen a surge in demand and worsening visa wait times in recent months.
Denmark, which relies on VFS Global for visa processing in the United States, is “experiencing extraordinary demand” for tourist visas after most pandemic travel restrictions were lifted, a spokesperson for the Danish Consulate General in New York said. Mann, Jens Jacob Simonsen said. . This “increases processing times,” he said, adding that consular staff regularly work overtime to manage the backlog.
Visa processing can take up to 80 days, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website warns.
Some travelers turn to smaller third-party visa agents, who claim they make reservations easier and ensure faster approvals, but they typically come with a few hundred dollars in additional costs. takes.
But even some of those agencies said there was little they could do at this point. Tanya Guseva, managing director of London-based Visapoint, said there is a backlog due to pandemic restrictions that have seen travel and visa services significantly reduced and even temporarily suspended. He said he thought so.
“At the moment, it appears that the visa centers representing all the Schengen consulates with which we work and associated consulates such as VFS, TLScontact, etc. are fully booked weeks and months in advance.” she said.
resentment against the system
Visa applicants have taken to various parts of the internet to express their outrage. One Reddit community dedicated to Schengen visa complaints is endlessly scrolling through nightmare travel scenarios and pleas for guidance on understanding the application process.
South African winemaker Francois Hersbrouck, 44, applies for a Schengen visa every year to attend trade events and visit wine importers and distributors. He primarily travels to France and Belgium, but says he’s tired of the onerous entry requirements, the time and effort it takes, and the underlying stress of whether he’ll be able to make the trip in time.
“How many times do I have to repeat myself to prove I’m a reliable traveler, whatever that means?” Mr Hasbrouck lives in Paarl, east of Cape Town, and this month He said he plans to travel to Belgium and the Netherlands in late December. “We have these layers of cumbersome, pointless rules and bureaucracy. But we’re better off just continuing to jump through the same hoops over and over again.”
Allows travelers to purchase visas or apply for reservations in less competitive countries that are not their destination (once admitted to a Schengen country, without additional documentation) (you can cross the border). One Reddit poster shared a strategy for applying to countries that are rumored to be more lenient in granting short-term visas than other member states.
Simonsen said the Danish government has noticed an increase in the ban.
“The obligation under the Schengen Agreement to refuse such applications is frustrating for travelers, further lengthening processing times for travelers whose main destination is Denmark, and generally costing them time and money. “It’s a waste of money,” he said.
The European Parliament is considering legislation that would improve the application process by moving it online to a single portal used by all Schengen Area member states.
“The purpose of this proposal is twofold: to make the visa application process more efficient and to improve security within the Schengen area,” a statement released in June said.
Only first-time applicants will need to make an appointment for an in-person appointment, and a digital visa will be issued instead of a sticker placed on the inside of a traveler’s passport. But this change is not imminent, said Christine Sullivan, a partner at global immigration firm Fragomen, adding that any interim rules would need to be adopted by member states.
Wider ramifications?
Industry experts said the Schengen visa backlog was having far-reaching ramifications for the rest of the world. Destinations with fewer visa requirements, such as the United Kingdom, Turkey and Mexico, have seen faster and stronger tourism recoveries than countries with visa requirements, according to an Economic Insights Report released by Visa in May.
Richard Lang, Visa’s chief global economist, said: “Global tourism could accelerate further once the current visa processing backlog is resolved.”
Tim Fairhurst, director of the European Tourism Association, a trade association for travel agents and tour operators, said member states were operating on the assumption that people would “just wait in line” to visit Europe. He said it seems like it.
“Evidence suggests they could be going somewhere else,” he said. “It is very frustrating that member states do not understand that the provision of visas is a service and that it takes place in a competitive market.”
Reto Kaufman, director of South and Southeast Asia at travel agency Kuoni Tumlale, said non-European countries such as Kazakhstan are seizing the opportunity to attract tourists by removing visa requirements. This month, the Thai government approved an exemption that will allow Chinese nationals to enter the country without a visa until February next year. (Travelers who need to apply for a Schengen visa include Chinese nationals.)
