Karamanou (PSE), rapporteur. – (EL) Mr President, as the
House knows, my report concerns the Spanish initiative to simplify the Schengen
rules and cut out as much red tape as possible, by allowing group visas to be
issued at external borders to seamen in transit, thereby making things easier
for Member States with a navy.
My report is a
considerable improvement on the original proposal, because it protects citizens’
individual rights and personal data, using the Schengen provisions on which the
regulation is based. My report also edits the text so that it is gender
neutral, in recognition of the fact that many women have entered the seafaring
profession over recent years. Most importantly, we reject the criterion of
common nationality because there are insufficient grounds for requiring seamen
to be of the same nationality in order to obtain a group visa. The report
therefore proposes that short group visas should be issued to groups of between
five and fifty seamen, even if they are not all of the same nationality. This will help European shipping considerably.