New way forward for US-Polish visas?

The visa issue has long been a point of contention in Polish-American relations. A fresh initiative to resolve the problem has come from the American Heritage Foundation.

For well over a decade now, every Polish politician visiting the United States, from president to deputy foreign minister, has included the visa issue on his agenda, if only in the unofficial part of the visit. Yet, virtually nothing has been achieved for the simple reason that the current rejection rate of visa applications from Poland is almost seven times higher than the three percent threshold for a given country to qualify for a visa waiver programme. The influential Heritage Foundation in the United States, which represents the conservative viewpoint, has drafted a report which proposes some radical solutions. According its author, James Carafano, a prominent expert on defense and security matters, Poland is an excellent candidate to be part of the waiver programme.

”The restrictions in the US law that prevents Poland from qualifying for the visa waiver programme – the 3 per cent or higher rejection rate for visa applications – is not an adequate or useful measure, determining whether Poland should be eligible or not. What I propose is that the US Congress amend the law so that the departments in the US administration that negotiate these things with foreign countries show greater flexibility in allowing Poland to participate in the waiver programme sooner rather than later.

Some experts in Poland say that Warsaw should take up the visa issue on the European Union forum. According to James Carafano this would lead to nowhere. The visa negotiations are conducted on a bilateral basis. What could improve Poland’s position in the talks with Washington, James Carafano claims, would be a joint action with the other post communist nations of Central Europe.

”These countries should come together and negotiate on a bilateral basis because of their common interests. On our end we need to pressure Congress to amend the law. The visa issue is not the US-EU issue. Visas are a bilateral matter. But if the new nations of Eastern Europe get together and make the case as a group, it would be very hard for our government not to respond. “

The Heritage Foundation thinks that even though Warsaw is unlikely to be given a preferential treatment, the close nature of Polish-US relations is a highly important factor

”I don’t think it’s appropriate that Poland is treated as a second-class ally. This is a nation which shares many common interests with the US, we’re both free-market democracies, we both want strong and stable Europe, we both want to fight terrorism around the world, we have deep cultural ties. The strong tries between our nations were a natural course of events. They were interrupted by the Cold War. We should get back to what’s natural, to treating Poland as a first-class ally.”

James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation in the United States. It is recalled in the Foundation’s report that in 1993 the Washington-based Rand Corporation first proposed an eastward expansion of NATO. Following intensive lobbying, several years later Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic became NATO members. Now is the time for a similar lobbying on the visa question. According to the Heritage Foundation, this matter should be resolved much quicker.

2 posted on 03/06/2006 12:05:49 PM PST by VU4G10 (Have You Forgotten?)

Well, per that article the current rejection ratio is about 20%. It would be interesting to see what categories of people have been rejected and for what reasons [former secret police informers? mafiosi in transit? something else?]. Then it would become possible to sort the situation out in a reasonably intelligent manner.

Even those rejected don't know why they were rejected...

Of course they do not. This info, even as a statistical summary, is to be obtained from the rejectors, not from the rejected.

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