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Executive body charges there is ''insufficient'' US action on the visa issue

BRUSSELS – 09/04/06 – The European Commission is considering asking EU countries to impose visa requirements on US diplomats in retaliation for a US delay in extending a visa waiver scheme to all EU states.

The European Union's executive body had warned it could back such a sanction if Washington did not extend the scheme to Greece and the nine states that joined the 25-member bloc in 2004, most of them from the former Soviet bloc.

The US has repeatedly said it can waive visas only when a country fulfils clear requirements, such as a low rate of citizens who overstay the duration of their visas.

An internal report by the Commission's justice department said there had been insufficient progress on the issue and that US diplomats should be made to apply for visas before entering the bloc, said officials familiar with the report.

A final decision on the recommendation – that, if put into practice by member states, would throw a spanner in the works of transatlantic diplomacy – must be taken by the 25 Commissioners at the head of the Brussels-based executive body.

The Commission is due to present its report to EU justice and interior ministers in Finland later this month.
"It will ask for imposing visas on diplomats – at least that is what its departments ask it to do," said one EU official, who asked not to be identified by the media.

Another EU official said the US requirements were not clear enough and that was why the Commission's justice department had called for sanctions.

The new EU states are reportedly frustrated by the US position.

One Czech diplomat warned in July his country could break with EU rules and reintroduce visas unilaterally.

An EU diplomat said he doubted all the bloc's states would back any recommendation to impose visa requirements on US diplomats.

"The EU line has officially been one for all and all for one, but in reality this has not been enforced," he said. "It will be very difficult to find a common hard line.”

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Korea, US Free Trade Pact ''Possible'' by Early 2007

WASHINGTON, DC – 10/25/06 – A free trade pact between the US and South Korea could become a reality by early 2007, says chief US negotiator Wendy Cutler at the opening of this week’s fourth round of talks between the two countries; since the two sides launched FTA negotiations in February they have reported little progress even though they postponed consideration of the most politically sensitive issues, such as US access to the Korean rice market.