POLICY REPORT ON IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM IN LATVIA ...

57
European Union and Schengen Agreement. Same as in the previous years, missions of the
Republic of Latvia abroad and particularly missions of Latvia situated outside the Schengen
area are increasingly focusing on the participation of responsible officials in local Schengen
cooperation meetings. Due to the local Schengen cooperation, missions of Latvia and other
Schengen Member States can not only exchange information quickly and detect those visa
applicants who submit visa applications without good fate, but also make decisions more
actively on what should be done to harmonize the reviewing of visa application in compliance
with the Schengen acquis.
In 2010, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs continued its work with other Schengen
Member States in order to agree on the possibilities of representation in countries where Latvia
does not have its diplomatic or consular mission, as well as consider the possibilities to
represent another Schengen Member State in the field of visas. As a result, in the field of visas
Latvia is represented by 7 Schengen Member States (Germany, Hungary, France, the
Netherlands, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania and Estonia), which represent Latvia in 53 different
locations worldwide. But Latvia currently represents 7 Schengen Member States in the field of
Schengen visas (Hungary, France, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Lithuania, Estonia and Sweden)
in totally 8 locations worldwide. Latvia has developed good cooperation with other Member
States to the Schengen Agreement, thus the Ministry of Foreign Affairs plans also in 2011 to
continue and to expand the started cooperation with Member States to the Schengen Agreement
in the field of representation of Schengen visas. 135
By taking into account that a large number of citizens of the Ukraine reside and enter
Latvia from various regions of the Ukraine, it is important to facilitate the procedure for
submission of visa applications by making it more accessible, therefore Latvia as the first
among the Schengen Member States decided to provide an opportunity to citizens of the
Ukraine to submit a visa application in all the regions of the Ukraine. In order to implement
this activity, the Latvian Embassy in Ukraine has started cooperation, from 1 December 2010,
with courier mail service Pony Express so that the citizens of the Ukraine from all the regions
of the Ukraine could send their visa applications to the Latvian Embassy by post.
However, also in future citizens of the Ukraine will have the right to visit the Latvian
Embassy in the Ukraine in Kiev for receiving a visa.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs informs that this is the first project of this type
implemented in Ukraine. Until now, none of the Member States to the Schengen Agreement
135 Information provided by officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.