Estonia's stateless residents to travel visa-free in EU
Stateless residents of Estonia, so-called gray passport owners, can travel without a visa in EU member countries from January 19, but not to Ireland and the United Kingdom.
The European Council passed the respective decision at the end of December. The Interior Ministry said the regulation was immediately applicable to all countries of the Schengen agreement as well as new EU member states.
Of Schengen countries only Norway has said that the regulation could not be harmonized with domestic law by January 19.
The Interior Ministry has said that the amended regulation exempts from the visa requirement refugees, stateless persons and other persons who are not nationals of any country provided they live legally in a member state of the EU and hold a travel document issued by that country.
In addition to the alien's passport and residence permit the persons must prove that they meet also other condeision of entering the country. For this the travel document must not expire within three months of entry into the foreign country, the perswon must have valid travel insurance and be able to prove the purpose of his or her visit and possess sufficient means of subsistence.
"If the person does not meet the conditions of entry into the country, he or she will not permitted to enter that member country's territory," said Kert Valdaru, head of the Interior Ministry Citizenship and Migration department. "Therefore the person must be throgouhgly acquainted with the conditions the destination country has established with respect to foreigners."
The regulation covers Estonian residents of undefined citizenship who carry an alien's passport and hold a residence permit. The visa exemption facilitates travel but does not give the right to work in another EU country or stay there for longer than 90 days in six months.
Estonia had 125,799 stateless residents as of December 31, 2006.
The regulation does not pertain to Russian citizens residing in Estonia. Persons who have the citizenship of a third country, but the residence permit of a member country, will be exempted from visas only after Estonia's accession to the Schengen visa space.
But the regulation grants the right to travel without visas to schoolchildren who hold the citizenship of a third country (such as Russia) whose place of residence is in an EU member state (for instance, Estonia).
Traveling on a school excursion such a schoolchildren's group must be accompanied by a teacher of the same school. Visa-free travel in the framework of a school trip is not extended to persons who are not nationals of any country.
© Baltic News Service