Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Residents of Taiwan and the N Marianna Islands in the Pacific will not in future need visas to visit Switzerland as tourists, the federal government announced 22 December. The change accompanies a change in the rules of the Schengen Area, of which Switzerland is a member.
The new rule goes into effect 11 January. It applies to residents who will be staying for less than three months and not doing “gainful work”, which has a precise and strict definition in Switzerland, Bern notes in its announcement. Volunteers and trainees who are doing work that might otherwise be considered labour that requires pay are considered to be gainfully employed in Switzerland, for example, and they are subject to work visa laws, in order to prevent abuse of foreigners by employers who do not pay them.
Brussels, Belgium (GenevaLunch) - The European Commission reacted to Libya’s ban on visas for Schengen residents by saying it will meet later in the week to discuss the abrupt decision by Muammar Qadaffi’s government. Cecilia Malmstroem of Sweden, the commissioner for home affairs, provided a more immediate response: “The European Commission deplores the unilateral and disproportionate decision by Libyan authorities to suspend the delivery of visas to EU Schengen countries’ citizens. The commission also regrets that travelers who legally obtained visas before the suspension measure were refused entry when arriving in Libya.”
It is unclear if the move includes diplomats, but there are reports that people arriving in Tripoli with visas are being refused entry at the airport.
The visa ban appears to be in retaliation for an unconfirmed ban on travel to Switzerland, a member of the Schengen area, by close to 200 Libyans. Switzerland has not issued any information along these lines and the Swiss government has refused to confirm the information, which was reported by a Libyan newspaper generally considered close to one of Qadaffi’s sons.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss Federal Council Wednesday 20 May rejected the proposal of Councilor Evelyn Widmer-Schlumpf to reintroduce quotas for European Union workers. The Schengen area agreement allows for this if certain conditions are fulfilled, notably in times of economic difficulty, but the rest of the seven-member cabinet refused to accept the justice and police minister’s recommendations.
Related: notice from Bern, TSR, Fre
Zurich train station
Geneva, Switzerland (Le Temps, Fre) – Switzerland’s weekend vote in favour of biometric passports is a positive sign in terms of the country’s closer relationship with the European Union (EU), but there are disquieting signs, too, says Jacques Barrot, EU vice-president. Barrot is interviewed at length in Le Temps about Switzerland the Schengen accord. Two areas for concern are the possibility that Swiss border guards’ patrols of Swiss trains could become routine and that the Swiss Federal Council could decide this week to exercise its option to reduce the number of foreigners allowed to work in the country.
Geneva, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – Two men and a woman in their sixties and seventies, were stopped by customs officers at the Geneva-Croix-de-Rozon border early in the morning, and arrested when it appeared that they have been using a series – up to 25 in one case – of false documents to commit several crimes in Europe, including forgery, false documents and fraud. The new Schengen SIS shared identification system, in use at the border since August 2008, has allowed border guards to pick up 256 people sought by police within the Schengen area.
Terminal 10, Geneva's Cointrin airport (GVA)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Cointrin Airport won’t look the same to you Sunday if you’re fliying to or from Britain or Ireland or any other non-Schengen country. Swiss airports have been working with the European Union for some months to bring security systems into line, the last step in Switzerland dropping routine border controls to allow the free movement of people within the Schengen Area, to which Switzerland belongs.
Passport controls go, customs checks remain
Land border controls ended in 2008, but airports caused a problem, in part because of the large amount of traffic between Switzerland and two EU countries that are not part of the Schengen area, the UK and Ireland.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in Geneva Thursday morning rounded up 26 Romanians who were begging in the streets, public radio RSR reports, in a sweep of the city that involved four police vans and 30 officers. The move was linked to the upcoming federal vote, 8 February, on extending the free movement of people to Romania and Bulgaria, in an effort to reduce a popular negative perception of traveling people, notably Roms, and some other groups from these countries. Also Thursday, the Federal Council in Bern issued an unusually strong statement against racist overtones in political advertising for the 8 February vote.
