Let’s face it. Borders do exist, otherwise we would not be fighting so hard to bring them down. It is nice to know that some people continue fighting this battle even on their vacation. This year’s Parisian Summer University took place in cooperation with the Visa Freedom Working Group and broadened the horizons of all of their participants.

The charm of the city of love was combined with a bit of knowledge and a lot of fun. Three seminars on the visa topic were not only informative, but also very enjoyable. The official statistics showed that more than 60% of the participants learned a lot and, moreover, had fun doing it. Lena Shvab, from AEGEE-Kyiv, took the responsibility of holding three workshops on visa-related topics. As she knew far too well that this was an AEGEE SU, she was sure to add a game to each of the parts. Moreover, the second workshop was held even with cooperation of the OECD. The participants didn’t only get to know Lena’s passport and the visas she has in it, but also obtained general knowledge about types of visas, application process and denial.

This is the event in which the participants from non-schengen countries got to switch places with the EU members. For many Europeans travelling comes as something easy and completely enjoyable. But the visa process often puts a sour start to a dream vacation, even if you receive it without any big problems. After all the time and efforts dedicated to obtaining their visas for the SU, the participants got to take revenge and become some of the strictest visa officers ever seen. Regardless, the role-play was a total success with lots of laughter and celebration.

With true AEGEE spirit, the participants partied hard but didn’t lose the chance to learn something new. With their newly obtained knowledge they are all heading back home and bringing with them the memories and experiences they now share.

Written by Olga Volovyk, AEGEE-Kyiv

Thank you for the photos to Lea Charlette, AEGEE-Paris

Starting any visa process in AEGEE is like a lottery – you never know how organisers will behave, how attentively the visa officer will look at your documentation, and what will you get in your passport in the end.

After Agora Skopje we all had a sad experience in visa issues, when no Caucasian locals were able to attend the Agora because visa procedures were not followed by organisers. Afterwards it was discussed many times why it happened and how to avoid this. Everybody was sure that the Agora in Enschede would be non-problematic at all in terms of visas. However, let us see what happened in the end.

Communication with the organising team was very fast, some single complaints from participants about organisers not answering e-mails were not surprising – in the last couple of months before the Agora, the team was simply overloaded with e-mails and tons of work. We all were pleasantly surprised when it appeared that the organisers put so much efforts into visa issues that they even had agreements with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Netherlands; all visa applicants going to Agora Enschede were allowed to obtain visas with the copy of invitation letter, and all foreign missions in visa countries were informed about the upcoming event.

However, in all this positive attitude there was one little drawback – participants were not timely informed about those agreements and they did not get proper instructions what to tell their embassies; i.e. that their applications were associated with that agreement with the Ministry. Thus, calling an embassy and asking if they can apply just with a copy of invitation letter, logically because of the rules of the embassy, most participants got a negative answer. What did we get with this? Panic, of course. If you were denied a visa at least once in your life, you become paranoid about visa issues and extremely careful in terms of documents. Taking a risk to apply with copy of invitation? No way!

However, fast reaction of organisers, provision of copy of the agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and first successful visas among participants helped to overcome all fears, and mass applications to embassies in different parts of South-Eastern Europe were started. The result – all applicants received their visas, there were no denials, and everybody happily packed their luggage, slowly moving to the Netherlands.

Due to good work of the organising team and the Visa Responsible, all Agora participants were able to attend the Agora and see that this General Assembly appeared to be one of those wonderful Agorae where you can see the main coordinator smiling, and the whole organising team working fast, smoothly, and still being able to make jokes.

I am sure I will express the overall gratitude of all visa participants to Amarins, the Visa Responsible of Agora Enschede, and the entire AEGEE-Enschede team for all their efforts concerning visa issues, and all their help. Thank you very much for your patience, all your explanations and understanding! See you in Budapest!

Written by Olga Iatsyna, AEGEE-Dnipropetrovsk

The Agora Skopje will surely be remembered for a long time by many members of AEGEE to be a very exceptional one. Especially for us, the members of the Visa Freedom Working Group, it was quite special in many different aspects.

The most remarkable visa-related incident was the lack of information of  local organisers about the visa procedures of the participants from countries that require visas (especially from the Caucasus countrie), a rather short period for applying for visas and a lack of communication. As a result, many applications were rejected and not many participants from these countries were able to show up at the Agora to represent their antennae. This showed how many improvements need to be done regarding the invitation procedure and the general attitude towards this topic.

Some of the more positive happenings were the activities organised by the VFWG.

During the first day of the Agora (in the morning), the VFWG represented itself in the plenary and showed up on stage with quite a big group. The speaker and a couple of new members explained the achievements and past activities. In fact, the Visa Freedom Working group got a bit more popular thanks to this and more and more people got interested in the topic.

Later that day, Jana Pokorná and Olga Iatsyna held the workshop called “Vice Visa: the obstacles of young volunteers with visa issues”. More than 20 participants showed up, which was considered a great success and a lot more people said that they were interested in coming. The workshop was explaining from the beginning that the visa topic is still not dead in Europe, on the contrary – with the development of the Schengen Treaty – the outside borders became very difficult to cross and a lot of young volunteers are fighting with the system on daily basis. The discussion about the actual “benefit” of visas was deeply discussed and surprisingly people had very different opinions concerning the visa policy. They were also taught how to deal with the participants that are in need of a visa (from the perspective of the organiser) and were explained where to find relevant information.

On Saturday, the VFWG took part in the AEGEE Fair. Four members were representing the VFWG at a stand, which turned out to be a big success. We were able to raise awareness about visa issues, handed out information material such as the ideal invitation letter (can also be downloaded on our website: http://www.wg.aegee.org/vfwg/) and played a board game characterising the everlasting obstacles of the visa procedure.

During the same day the VFWG, together with AEGEE-Academy representative Miguel, presented 2 proposals: the reform of the Working Format of Working Groups (which was approved) and voting rights for envoys (which was not approved).

During the closing plenary at the last day of the Agora, a new video of the VFWG was shown and left a lot of people very pensive. Once more it came to our minds that our continent is still divided in two parts, the one that is free to go anywhere they want and the other one that still has to fight for every step they want to take and must undergo to get outside of their own boundaries. There is still a lot to do for the VFWG….

We hope that you enjoyed the Agora as much as the VFWG did and we are already looking forward to another chance to represent this part of AEGEE and contribute to the activities of the Network, as well as spread our fame among more members of this organisation.

written by the Visa Freedom Working Group

Dear AEGEEans,

As many of you know, some of our members still need a visa to get to most of our events and travelling for them is not as common as for most others. We, as Visa Freedom Working Group (VFWG), have asked one of our members about her experience of applying for a visa and what she has to do to obtain one. This especially focuses on the Schengen Area visas where most of our events take place.

What is your name, from which antenna are you and since when?

My name is Olga Iatsyna and I’m member of AEGEE-Dnipropetrovsk since 2008.

How many times have you travell to AEGEE events in the past?

At first, it was once per year, then twice. But after becoming Network Commissioner I became an addict and travel almost every month.

When do you need to obtain a visa?

I do not need a visa to travel to any country from the former Soviet Union, but I always need a Schengen[1] visa for any other country.

How long does it take for you to obtain a visa? Please name some examples of what you have to do before the embassy takes your application for a visa into progress?

On average it takes around one week from the moment you submit application to the embassy until the magical moment you receive your passport back. However, sometimes it takes up to four weeks, for example for my Italian visa. Before this, we all have to do quite serious preparation such as collecting documents, which takes another 2-3 weeks. Usually embassies request quite general information like references from work, booked tickets, and any information proving that you have reasons to enter the country (invitation and support letters), as well as valid reasons to come back home. The most complicated statement usually is the bank reference, confirming that you have enough money to live in the destination country. For a Schengen visa they usually request at least 40-50 Euros per day of the visa period on your bank account, meaning that going to a SU you have to put in average up to 1000 Euro on your bank account and show reference in embassy. Impressive, isn’t it?
Can you name an example when you did not get the visa?  

It was a Greek visa for my Summer University with AEGEE-Peiraias and the Greek embassy rejected my application. At that moment I had already purchased tickets to the event for 300 Euro, an expensive insurance and lots of money was spent on the preparation of all documents and traveling to the embassy.
Do you think the rejection was good motivated? 

No, when I came to the embassy to receive my passport back, they issued a passport with a paper inside, stating that I got a visa denial and the reason was “Not enough reasons to enter the country”. Despite the fact I provided the full package of documents, no more explanations were given to me.

Did you try to challenge this rejection?

Well, yes, me personally and th SU organizers from AEGEE-Peiraias were doing our best to cancel this stamp in my passport. We called the embassy, asked to reconsider my case and give at least some explanations, but it was useless. Later I got to know that embassies do not like to recognise their mistakes, so they always try to avoid the cancellation of a visa denial. I lost around 50% of the ticket cost after return, lost money for insurance, missed the SU of my dreams and received tons of negative emotions and a visa denial stamp in my passport.

What is the general cost of a visa? 

In Ukraine the general cost of a Schengen visa is 35 Euro, and in case you are in a hurry, you can pay twice more and receive visa in 3-day term. And our situation is pretty good comparing to other countries where people have to pay at least 60 Euro. However, being the best case among even worse cases is not comforting and I really hope that the situation with all Eastern European countries will soon change for the better.

Did you ever try to obtain a free visa?[2]

In my first year of AEGEE I was always afraid to apply for a free visa, because I was afraid that I might get visa denial if I start banging the table with my fist and yell that I want free visa. But then Alla Resheten, who was Vice-President of AEGEE-Kyiv at that time, told me once that I shouldn’t feel like a beggar and I had all rights to ask for a free visa and explained why. Since that time I always confidently request a Schengen visa free of charge.

Ukraine has a visa facilitation agreement since 2006. Do you think it was of any help to you?

Yes, it was really helpful to know I was backed up by the law. I always feel more confident in embassies because of this. And a free of charge visa saves money for cheaper plane tickets to AEGEE events in Europe.

What do you think can be improved by embassies to obtain visa fairer and easier?  

I really like the policy of the Belgian embassy in Ukraine. They do not request you to show up in person, but you can send the application and all documents by courier mail and you receive your passport within three days. This saves a lot of money and time. And such a work attitude might help our locals in the Caucasus countries to get visas to Macedonia for the Agora Skopje much faster and cheaper, without going to Moscow or Ankara to the embassy. Because of this principle of “personal application” we lost those locals for Agora and they cannot attend it. And of course free visas in all visa countries for AEGEE members would be great. And lots of other things, which I can list if I had ten more pages. :)

How do you think the Visa Freedom Group can be more of a help to you?

We already were discussing it in VFWG. Our aim currently is not to abolish visas for all people in Europe – we are not in charge of doing that unfortunately. Our aim is to facilitate visa issuing processes and abolish visas in the best case for AEGEE members. Starting with building trustful and reliable co-operation with consulates and finishing with real effective agreements is our goal. I think if these aims are being achieved, the VFWG can be of a lot of help.

The world sometimes is smaller than you think and for many people, their world ends where their national borders are. Almost half of our Network frequently encounters problems when traveling. AEGEE is there to enlighten cross-border and intercultural experiences and with this legal barrier, it is impossible for many. This personal story gives a face to the current practices of the Schengen countries and hopefully makes you more aware of the battle many of us have to fight each time.

Hopefully you will continue this fight with us!

Visa Freedom Working Group

written by Lenny Smulders, AEGEE- Maastricht, and Olga Iatsyna, Network Commission & AEGEE-Dnipropetrovsk

Did you ever have the feeling to be rejected, not to be selected, or just to be treated with less respect than others? Did you have the feeling that this happened only because of your origin, nationality, or legal status? Thousands of Europeans from the Eastern or South-Eastern part of our continent experience this feeling every year. They try to apply for a visa for the Schengen zone or for other countries with restricted visa statutes. Probably everybody in AEGEE has heard of a friend or a fellow AEGEE member who has had trouble receiving the precious stamp in their passport that gives them access to any country of the Schengen zone. And probably everybody has heard of cases when the applicant had to cancel a flight and even had to pay the full participant fee of an event because the visa application stranded in the notorious bureaucracy of the issuing authorities. Self-defence against illegal immigration is the official reason for this wearisome procedure. What might be true and reasonable in a few hundred cases, demonstrates pure discrimination and violation of human rights in the other hundreds of thousand cases. While most young citizens of the member states of the Schengen zone do not even know anymore what a visa actually is, millions of Eastern Europeans are confronted with it on a daily basis. The implicitness of being able to travel wherever and whenever we want is a luxury that still not all Europeans can enjoy. This invisible wall is nowhere more visible than in a transnational student organization like AEGEE. And no one understands the absurdness better than the members of AEGEE. Therefore it is especially our responsibility to break this wall in our heads and to fight for a Europe without limitations.

The VFWG has the goal to raise awareness of this so often ignored issue. It prepares and places helpful documents for the visa procedure at the disposal of  all AEGEE members, for example invitation letters in many different languages. It also helps with difficult visa cases and intends to train and establish a pool of visa experts that know every possibility to steer around visa problems. Officially, the VFWG is a working group of AEGEE. However, its working format resembles that of a committee. What is the difference between a working group and a committee? A working group is a thematic group that strives to start new projects within AEGEE like to Flagship Project and to work on a certain topic. The activity of the Working Groups can vary strongly due to projects. A committee on the other side is supposed to support the organisation and especially the CD with basic structure work, such as the Academy or the IT Committee. The VFWG is a mixture of both; it supports the whole organisation in visa issues similiar to a committee, while it also organises single events (one is planned this winter in Ukraine), smaller projects like the “Postcard Project”, and it tries to establish partnerships with other student organisations such as ESN. The main purpose of the VFWG is to help fellow AEGEE members from countries that have visa restrictions. However, the members of the VFWG originate from many different countries. Many members are actually citizens of one of the Schengen zone states. This shows how big the solidarity amongst members of our organisation is and how similarly this topic is seen by students from both Non-Schengen and Schengen countries.

written by the Visa Freedom WG