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Politics News

Only 78 Liberian applied for a Schengen visa during 2018-report

The latest official statistics covering 2018 show that a number of 78 Liberian citizens applied for a Schengen visa during last year, according to SchengenVisaInfo.com.
To this day, the only one Schengen embassy in Liberia which collects and processes Schengen visa applications is the Swedish embassy. Based on the latest statistics, exactly 78 citizens of Liberia applied for a Schengen uniform visa at this embassy. This was a higher number compared to 57 visa applications which had been collected during 2017.

In turn, the Swedish embassy issued 74 Schengen uniform visa. As such it meant that the percentage share of visa approval at this embassy was almost 95%. However, Multiple Entry Visas which by rule enable their holders to enter Schengen more than once under the 90/180 day rule counted for a significantly small proportion of total visa grants. Only 6 visa approvals or 8.1% out of the total were MEV visas.

Unfortunately, citizens of Liberia who want to travel to the Schengen area are facing many challenges. Despite that many Schengen embassies are located in Liberia many of them receive no visa applications. Instead, Liberians have to go elsewhere in other countries (mostly in Ghana) to submit an application.

Earlier this month, Liberian and an EU delegation met to hold the traditional Liberal-EU Political Dialogue for the seventh year in a row. Issues addressed in this meeting also included Schengen visas and concern of Liberian authorities of a lack of recognition of their official passport by some Schengen members.

The EU delegation has promised to work to tackle these issues and they confirmed that soon citizens of Liberia will be able to apply for a Schengen visa in their home country.

Schengen is an area comprised of 26 EU countries where borders are abolished for citizens of member countries. Currently, these countries participate in the agreement
Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

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