eu-com-schengen-coop

3. State of play
3.1 Application/Revision of the Visa Code
The Visa Code is fully applied.
Local Circumstances in Visa Issues: The visa code is fully applied; all applications must contain the
documentation named in the Visa Code. Besides, the circumstances regarding falsifications of
documents and issuance of false documents are a constant issue for the German visa section.
Regrettably, through lack of the co-operation of the Tajik authorities no German officer checks
anymore the travel documents and visas of the passengers going to Frankfurt by the once-a-week
direct flight to Frankfurt of the Somon Air, a local airlines, at the check-point in the Dushanbe
International Airport. Notwithstanding, his work would be – or rather is - regarded as of
considerable importance to hamstring illegal immigration.
It is a unique feature of and great advantage for us here in Tajikistan that we only have one
Schengen visa section (Embassy of Germany - which, albeit, does not cover the whole Schengen
area) thus we are in the position to pursue one single visa policy – consequently, the problem of
"visa shopping", which arises in many other places and which also derives from the very different
visa policies of the member states, does not exist in Tajikistan.
Germany is the only EU mission in TJK which issues Schengen visa. The practise of the Embassy
is as follows: visa fees are charged according to Art. 16 of the Visa Code (EU Regulation 810/2009
as of 13.07.2009). The optional free-of-charge visas are named in section 5. They are applied for
bearers of diplomatic passports and applicants who are invited by state-funded programmes, as well
as for applicants travelling on behalf of inter-governmental/supra-governmental organizations (UN,
EU, IAEA, OECD, etc.), as well as for direct family members of EU citizens.
The addition of biometric data to the Schengen visa was implemented on 14 November 2013.
Unexpectedly the introduction of the new system led to long debates with the Tajik authorities,
which seems to be fixed just in April 2014. Since January 2014 the Tajik Ministry of Foreign
Affairs has been requesting diplomatic staff of the Delegation of the European Union to appear
personally at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when they need to extend their visa. In our opinion,
given the number of the staff (11 people), their spouses and their children the new procedure will
entail numerous visits per annum resulting in a waste of a huge amount of working hours and
manpower spent for this aim. Given that the activity of the European Union's Delegation in
Tajikistan is mainly bilateral assistance it means that it hampers the efficient functioning of the
Delegation – which is in the interest of neither party.
As the Tajik side explained, following the installation of the finger print system at the German
Embassy in Dushanbe (14 November 2013) their diplomats are expected to apply personally and
many of them have to pay for the visa in spite of the fact that they travel with diplomatic passport
and the Tajik party does not collect fee for diplomatic visa. The new Tajik procedure is an adoption
of the reciprocity principle to the Schengen procedure regarded as aggrieved by the Tajik side.
The European Union's Delegation had extensive discussion with the Embassy of Germany in
Dushanbe about the issue and told the result to the Tajik party, namely that one cannot set hopes on
being able to change the overall regulations on bilateral basis in one country regarding the finger
print system as a requirement of the new biometric Schengen visa accepted by all the member
countries of the Schengen zone. Consequently, EU DEL in Dushanbe understands and can accept
12893/14 PR/lm 169
DG D 1 A
EN