The Ease of Getting Visas

The Schengen region expanded at 00.01 a.m. on December 21, 2007 to embrace nine new countries (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia) – the states that joined the European Union on May 1, 2004, with the exception of Cyprus. This means that governments of these nine countries are now entitled to issue common Schengen visas, which are valid for entry into almost the whole of Europe. A great step forward, though a somewhat recent obstacle facing travelers.

Paradoxically enough, the triumph of liberal thought in economics over the last decade has resulted in overall ease of business regulations, while the parallel has been the introduction of more and more elaborate visa and immigration procedures. Taken for granted today, restrictive visa and immigration regimes are actually a very recent phenomenon.

“For more than 50 years the United States of America has required visas to study, visit, or conduct business in the U.S.”, reads the Department of State web-site. For ONLY 50 years!! As far as Europe is concerned, countries there started to seriously introduce regulatory restrictions on economic migration in the face of economic recession provoked by oil shocks in the late 1970s. Most restrictive regulations developed in the 1990s.

In nearly all countries of the world, foreigners have to request a work permit if they intend to work in the country. While the Schengen visa regime is expanding gloriously, even citizens of the new European Member States are not free to work in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and France.

While Doing Business is now looking at transparency of government, the indicators do not consider difficulties that an entrepreneur might face in a country if he is a foreign national. Neither do we consider the regulatory barriers to employment of foreign workers. In most cases the authorities refusing visas, residency and work permits are not obliged to give reasons behind their decisions.