POLICY REPORT ON IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM IN LATVIA ...

115
The State Border Guard on regular basis cooperates with Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine,
Azerbaijan, Belarus in the level of management and experts of institutions.
Within its competence in 2010, criminal investigation units of the State Border Guard
have cooperated with related departments of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, as the countries of
origin of immigrants, as well as with related departments of Lithuania, Estonia and Finland as
the countries of transit of immigrants.
9.2 Stockholm Programme (1-2 paragraphs in the text box created for each commitment)
The relevant commitments in the Stockholm Programme for this sub-section are in
particular:
6(a) The European Council encourages the Commission and Member States to take advantage
of the entry into force of the Visa Code and the gradual roll-out of the VIS
Please describe the progress of implementation of the Visa Code and VIS, if not already
provided under Pact Commitment III(b) above.
In order to ensure success of the Visa Code implementation process, in 2010,
representatives of the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs continued
regular participation in the visa working parties of the Council of the European Union and
meetings of the Visa Committee organised by the European Commission in Brussels, and
informed consular officials in diplomatic and consular missions abroad regarding current issues
and future plans in the field of issue of visas. Taking into account the requirements of the Visa
Code, current practice in embassies and consular offices was evaluated and necessary
developments as well as training of consular officials was performed for successful start of
application of the Visa Code. Attention of consular officials was drawn also to the need to
participate, within the framework of local Schengen cooperation, in meetings of the Schengen
Agreement member states in order to discuss and agree on the matters to be harmonized in the
procedure for review of visa applications.
In order to comply with the provisions of Paragraph one, Article 6 of the Visa Code that
a visa application shall be examined and decided on by the consulate of the competent Member
State in whose jurisdiction the applicant legally resides, and in order to comply with the
amendment to Paragraph five of Section 13 of the Immigration Law regarding the delegation to
the Cabinet of Ministers to issue regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers that will specify the
territorial competence of diplomatic and consular missions of the Republic of Latvia abroad in
issuance of visas, the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of 3 August 2010 approved
Regulation No. 725 "Regulation on the Territorial Competence of Diplomatic and Consular
Missions of the Republic of Latvia in Requests of Visas" which was developed by the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs.
The State Border Guard applies the Visa Code to full extent and, in 2010, has prepared
a range of internal regulatory documents to ensure the issue, annulment, cancellation of visas
according to the new regulation. The visa information system is being introduced in
cooperation with the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs according to the plan of
introduction of the visa information system.
Starting from 5 April 2010, there are two categories of visas: entry or C category visa
and airport transit visa or A category visa. Until 4 April 2010, also B category visas were used,
and now such visas are replaced with C category visas with the purpose of entry: transit, but the
EU Visa Code does not regulate the procedure for issuance of long-term or D category visa, but
national legislation of Member States shall be applied to such visas also in the future.