Travel visa

There will be no migrant deal with the European Union if visas are not lifted for Turkish citizens as agreed in a Turkey-EU deal in mid-March, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu said. 

"If they do not implement visa-liberalization [for Turkish citizens], then we will not implement the readmission agreement. These [things] are linked," Davuto?lu said in Doha on April 28.

A joint attempt by France and Germany to build a so-called "emergency brake" for future visa-free travel agreements with non-EU countries such as Turkey has led to debate as the attempt has been revealed only days before the EU's executive arm is to decide on May 4 whether to recommend that member states approve the visa waiver scheme by the end of June.

The distribution of new biometric passports containing chips, which are necessary to travel to Schengen countries, will start on June 1, with the government working on the necessary legal regulations. 

The new passports are among the 72 criteria required by the body for granting visa exemption to Turkish citizens in light of a Turkey-EU migrant deal signed on March 20.

Turkish legislation to meet European Union criteria on visa liberalisation will be completed on Monday, Turkey's minister for EU affairs, Volkan Bozkir said on Thursday.

Bozkir also told broadcaster NTV he expects the EU Commission to recommend the lifting of visas for Turks travelling to Europe in a report next week.

Russian tour operator ‘Pegasus’ cancelled its flights from three Russian airports due to visa problems. The company’s managing director, Anna Podgornaya, explained to local media that even though demand for Greek destinations is high, even ‘exceptional’, as she said, there were visa issues due to the Schengen area restrictions.

The European Union is "not doing Turkey a favor" by potentially granting Turkish citizens visa-free travel to EU member countries, President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an said during an official trip to Croatia on April 27. 

There are three important thresholds or tests ahead of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu in the next two months which can be decisive for Turkey in closing the gap with the West.

When I tried to organize a workshop on EU-Turkey relations a few years ago, I was criticized by my colleagues, an academic working in southern Antalya's Akdeniz (Mediterranean) University told me recently." Are you a spy of the EU? Are you making money off that?" I was asked some times, she said.

The Bulgarian government has approved draft amendments introducing a status of statelessness in the legislation.

Procedures regulating the legal status and the issuance of travel documents to stateless people who have been granted such status either by Bulgaria or another state have been clarified, with the government submitting the draft to Parliament for consideration.

The EU's top diplomat Federica Mogherini said April 26 that Turkey would only get visa-free travel to the bloc once it has met all the required criteria.
 
Turkey has demanded its citizens be allowed to enter the European Union's passport free Schengen zone without a visa by June, in exchange for it taking back migrants from Europe.