The European Union has three months to decide whether to impose visa requirements on U.S. and Canadian citizens, the European Commission said Tuesday, warning that such measures would negatively affect commercial and diplomatic relations between the countries.
Officials said last week the EU may introduce visas as a retaliatory move for restrictions imposed by the U.S. and Canada on some EU countries.
On Tuesday, the Commission presented an evaluation of the potential costs and practical feasibility of introducing the visas, and called on the European Parliament and the Council to “urgently launch discussions and to take a position on the most appropriate way forward.”
The two institutions should inform the Commission of their position by July 12 at the latest, it said.
The Commission said that the suspension of visa-free travel “would also likely entail considerable, economic consequences, notably for the aviation industry, as well as have a substantial impact on the EU’s external relations with two strategic partners,” according to a statement released on Tuesday.
Brussels also found that it’s “unlikely” that EU countries could process the increased number of visa applications within the legal timeframe of 90 days once the travel requirements would kick in. The move could also result in a decrease in the number of travelers from Canada and the U.S., it added.
Tuesday was the deadline the EU had imposed for the U.S. and Canada to lift restrictions on travelers from five EU countries.
Canada has imposed visa requirements on citizens of Bulgaria and Romania. The U.S. does so for citizens of Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania.
The EU functions on a visa reciprocity system, meaning that if citizens of a non-EU country can travel to the EU without a visa, the citizens of all EU member countries should also travel visa-free to that third country. The laws do not apply to the U.K. and Ireland, which do not participate in the common visa policy.
The visa requirements have been a touchy political issue for years.
In 2009, Canada reinstated visas for Czech Republic citizens after an earlier lifting resulted in a surge of asylum seekers in the country.
There are concerns the same would happen if visa requirements would be lifted from the remaining EU countries, namely Romania and Bulgaria. Canada and the Czech Republic resolved the issue in 2013 after Ottawa canceled visa requirements for Czechs.