Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/09/pwning-the-libs.html
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No chance that Trumpski’s policy is dictated by Putin based on his desire to break up the EU, right?
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The mentioned countries – Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Romania – were not “Soviet states”, i.e. part of the Soviet Union. They were part of the Eastern Block of the Warsaw Pact, and within that they were, more or less, independent countries. Cyprus never was part of either the Eastern Block or the Soviet Union.
The only three ex-Soviet countries in the EU – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania – are not among the countries that are part of this visa dispute.
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Additionally, the EU is not a a unified block. There are different levels of membership. When it comes to travel, there is the Schengen area. Of the four countries, only Poland is part of the Schengen area, the others are not. As such, the other four can set their own rules on travel to and from non-EU countries. I’m surprised that Poland should have, as a Schengen area state, different visa rules than other Schengen states (haven’t checked the correctness there), but if the reporting is correct, only Poland should be, rationally, the problem here.
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Right-wingers around the world won’t be happy until we revert to the days when travellers had to make a customs stop at the border of every petty barony.
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While it is true that Romania, Croatia and Bulgaria are not part of the Schengen area, all Schengen citizens can enter those countries for a duration of up to 90 days without a visa and with only their national id cards (not even a travel passport), more or less as it has been for entry to the USA.
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In fact, Schengen area is not actually a subset of the EU at all. Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland are not part of the EU at all, but are participants of Schengen. The UK (still) and Ireland are members of the EU, but not part of Schengen.
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Three former Warsaw Pact states, and one partitioned island nation with a history of internal terrorism (no idea why Crotia is on the list). Can’t imagine why the US applied disparate treatment with regard to entry, nope.
So what are the odds that the US responds with a reciprocal requirement? Instead of visa requirements for five EU states, requiring visas for all of them? The EU is playing right into Drumpf’s tiny little orange hands here.
They already do. This is the eu equalizing the treatment the 2 give each other’s citizens.
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If you are equating ETIAS with ESTA, then I see your point. Curious as to why the EU did not previously require visa waiver registration (which sounds a bit oxymoronic, tbh).
And Croatia wasn’t even that. It was part of Yugoslavia which was Non-aligned. Indeed it was a founding member of the movement. During the Cold War it was one of the few places you’d have an equally easy time going to from the Soviet Union and America.
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It really is silly. The Warsaw Pact is over 25 years dead, and the stupid dispute on Cyprus was a regional nationalist one that had little to do with the U.S.
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To be fair isn’t this like Australia’s e-visa? (Pretty much instant and free/low cost)
Also, if I’m reading this correctly does this mean an American could visit for 3 years? Previous limit was 90 days iirc
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My passport includes “By order of Her Majesty…” and says I can travel “without let or hindrance.”
Just gonna stroll past saying “Liz says it’s fine.”
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So true. And Left-wingers won’t rejoice until socialism requires papers and checkpoints within everyone’s own countries.
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Because internal passports are on the long-term agenda of every socialist politician. Right.
You know what, I’m going to follow @Melz2’s lead and ask you not to engage with me on this site any more – no direct responses (including to this comment), no Likes, no quoting me. I’ll also be adding you to the tiny handful of people on my Mute script. Your comments add absolutely no value to my experience on BBS, which is focused on engaging with and sometimes debating with a community of educated adults who can think critically and who don’t look at the world in black-and-white terms.
[looping in @orenwolf to make this request official]
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As I understand it the CNN article conflates 2 things - the introduction of a new ESTA-like visa, and possible extra limitations on US citizens due to their treatment of some EU nations (as yet not described, you might have to queue at an embassy somewhere to get a visa)
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What is this “mute script”? Are there instructions somewhere? (I’m feeling too lazy to search the BBS this morning)
Edit: This one?
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Yes. You have to install Greasemonkey or Tampermonkey and edit the script for boingboing, but it works like a charm to hide the users who add no value to the site for you (currently a mere five for me, three of them left-wingers)
You’ll also want to mute notifications about their comments in your account settings.
Apparently the Discourse devs are considering integrating similar functionality as a server-side feature. I hope it has back-end analytics to help the mods.
[apologies for the brief off-topic aside]
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Fair is fair. When Brazil did it I thought it was not only appropriate but terribly civil and elegant.
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