Franco Frattini, the European Union's justice commissioner, said Monday that a US visa policy that discriminates between old and new EU member states was no longer acceptable, according to dpa. "We can no longer tolerate first- and second-class member states," said Frattini, who was in Budapest to attend a meeting of foreign diplomats. Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, a long-time critic of the exclusion of Hungary and other Eastern European nations from the US's visa waiver programme, also called for a standardised set of rules. The US Congress last Friday approved legislation that could open improve the chances of citizens from new EU member states, such as Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, being allowed visa-free travel. The House of Representatives passed the bill 371 to 40. It introduces new border security measures, while including a provision that would make it easier for Eastern European countries to join the list of 27 nations in the Visa Waiver Programme. The Senate bill passed 85-8 Thursday night and the final version of the legislation could arrive in the White House for President George W Bush's signature this week. Bush has urged Congress to move toward including more Eastern European countries in the programme that currently allows citizens from certain countries, mostly from Western Europe, to come to the United States without a visa. The exclusion of Eastern Europe has been a sore spot in relations with the United States and Bush regularly hears complaints when he meets with his counterparts from the region. They complain that since they are members of NATO and support US foreign policy goals, namely in Iraq, that their citizens should be subject to the same rules as Western Europe. Once Bush signs the bill into law, the US State Department and Homeland Security Department will determine which countries will qualify under the new programme. Current legislation states that a country can only join the programme if less than 2 per cent of its nationals were refused visas or violated visa conditions during the previous fiscal year. The new law will push this percentage up to 10 per cent, although only the Czech Republic and Estonia currently meet this criterion from the new EU member states. Slightly less than 13 per cent of Hungarian applications were denied last year, although this number has been falling.
