Romania is already two laps ahead! Two US senators introduced a bill to support the inclusion of neighbors in the Visa Waiver program, allowing visa-free travel to the US for up to 90 days. This was announced by the Romanian embassy in the USA, quoted by Digi 24 and BTA.
The initiative came from Richard Durbin, the number two echelon of the Senate Democratic leadership, and Gene Shaheen, chairman of the European subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The legislative initiative comes immediately after the two senators’ visit to Romania last month.
The condition set by the US for visa-free overseas travel is that visa refusals do not exceed 3%. In Bulgaria, the rejected applications are 9%, for our northern neighbor this percentage is higher.
The two countries, along with Cyprus, are the European Union countries without visa-free travel to the US. Croatia was invited to join the program at the end of 2021.
Titled the Romania Visa Waiver Act of 2023, it sends an important policy signal to the US executive branch (the Department of Homeland Security, which administers the visa waiver program) regarding the designation of Romania as a participating country.
At the same time, the authorities in Bucharest are encouraged to strengthen their efforts to combat human trafficking and to meet the technical criteria for admission to the program as stipulated in the US Immigration and Nationality Act.
Bucharest overtook Sofia in another indicator – entry into the Schengen zone, where it received the support of the Netherlands. Thus, only Austria remains to be fought. While Bulgaria has to convince both the Netherlands and Austria that it is ready for entry
