The European Union (EU) threatened to take retaliatory measures against Singapore and the United States if they still refused to extend the visa waiver program to all EU states, a report released by the European Commission said Wednesday.
According to the report, the EU has secured visa-free travel of all its citizens to three more countries -- Israel, Malaysia and Paraguay.
But there is no progress registered with Japan, Panama, Singapore and the United States since the release of the previous report in September 2007.
With regard to Singapore, the commission suggested that retaliatory measures should be considered if full reciprocity of visa waiver is not achieved within a reasonable time. However, it did not elaborate on details of the measures.
As for the United States, the commission threatened to propose temporary restoration of the visa requirement for U.S. nationals holding diplomatic and service passports as from Jan. 1, 2009 if no progress is made.
While U.S. citizens can travel visa-free to all EU member states, citizens from 12 EU member states still need visa when traveling to the United States.
"It is unacceptable that nationals from some third countries can benefit from visa-free travel to the EU whilst some of our fellow EU citizens can't travel visa-free to those countries," said European Commission Vice President Jacques Barrot, who is in charge of justice, freedom and security affairs.
The European Commission has achieved significant progress in visa waiver dialogue with Canada and Australia. Negotiations for a short-stay visa waiver agreement between the EU and Brazil have also started, the report said.
Source:Xinhua
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