Not all unions are created equal – at least that is what America thinks. Currently, Americans do not require a visa to visit any countries in the European Union (EU) if they are not working or staying longer than three months. However, not every EU member nation enjoy the same privileges.
The EU comprises of 28 nations and 23 of them do not require a visa to enter the United States of America. But 5 states – Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania – are required to produce a visa upon entering.
Back in 2014, the EU put up a request to America that all EU nations should be allowed visa-free entry by 2016. But the year came and left, and America has yet to add the remaining free states to the visa-free list.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security justify that their statistics had shown that more than three percent of applicants for visas from the five nations are rejected for some reason. The department added that this yardstick applies to all countries when considering them for the Visa Waiver Program.
Sources hinted that this issue will be brought up during a planned EU-U.S. ministerial meeting on June 15 and until then, ‘an eye for an eye’ situation is unlikely to occur as we speak. An American passport is the world’s third most powerful one and if the EU decides to revoke the visa-free status to Americans, the passport ranking will fall 28 places to join Uruguay at 24th. A Mexican passport is at 22nd.