Canada Visa Office May Be Opened In Prague

Jan Kohout, the Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic, recently informed reporters that Canadian government thinks over the matter of opening a visa office in Prague. In this case, Czech citizen no longer need to go to Vienna in order to apply for Canadian visas. But according to Mr. Kohout the progress is rather slow and the opening is still delayed due to tight finances.

It should be noted that the requirement for Czech citizens to obtain visas was reintroduced by Canada in June this year and caused diplomatic controversy between two countries. Canadian government explained the necessity of this move was determined by the growing number of Czechs trying to take shelter in Canada.

Czech diplomats didn’t agreed with such measures and appealed to the European Commission for help in solving this problem. Now the European Commission is to analyse all pros and cons and issue a report on this matter. Then it can be submitted in October this year after the meeting of Canadian and EU ministers.

Czech party has an opinion that this problem over visas arose due to the fact that Canadian asylum system is flawed and provides possibilities of abusing it. The fact that the majority of asylum applicants from the Czech Republic are Romanies assuring that they are discriminated and mistreated in their country may also add to irritation of Czech diplomats.

Some other European countries support the Czech Republic in its fight against reintroducing visas. Thus, this Monday Miroslav Lajcak, Slovak Foreign Minister, informed that his country will back up any measures that the Czech Republic may take. Italy also supports Czechs in this matter.

Photo: Canadian single entry visa, by Udv (wikimedia.org)