INTERVIEW Senator Petru Filip: Visa Waiver programme law should be uncoupled from general US immigration law

Chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee of the Romanian Senate Petru Filip states in an interview to AGERPRES that the adoption of the project that would eliminate the mandatory visa requirements for Romanian citizens traveling to the United States of America depends on the uncoupling of that project from the general law regarding immigration on US soil. He estimates that adoption of the law regarding the Visa Waiver by the United States Congress will not be possible this year.

Petru Filip also speaks in the interview on topics such as the crisis in Ukraine, Romania's position during the NATO summit in Wales, as well as about the Republic of Moldova and the activities that the Foreign Policy Committee has planned for the second half of this year.

AGERPRES: Mr. Chairman, you've recently conducted an official visit to Washington D.C. Certainly, one of the matters approached during your discussions with the US officials was the project through which, in Romania's case, the mandatory visa requirements for traveling to the US would be removed. What is the status of the project at this moment?

Petru Filip: From a strictly legislative point of view, the project regarding removal of visa requirements, that would be part of the Visa Waiver program, is, at this moment, coupled with the law on immigration. The law on immigration is a very sensitive subject in America, given that in the US there are several million immigrants with unclear situations regarding their stay there. It is a very delicate subject, a political campaign subject, November being host, among others, to congressional elections, a fierce political battle given the perspective of presidential elections in 2016. That is why this coupling makes that the Visa Waiver law...