9 prominent members of BUSINESSEUROPE, representative organization of the European private sector made an appeal to the governments of the Schengen area. With the contributing efforts of TÜSİAD representing Turkish private sector at the BUSINESSEUROPE and EU, it was for the first time that business visa requirements were considered as a major problem for the European economy, instead of a domestic security issue
In the appeal titled "Economic Growth instead of Visa-Barriers" the European business community raised the demand of concluding as soon as possible the negotiations with the Republic of Moldova, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine aiming at a reciprocal deregulation of business visa requirements, launching negotiations as regards to the deregulation of business visa requirements with the remaining Eastern Partnership countries and removing business visa barriers with the above states by 2018.
The joint appeal which is an initiative of the business organizations from Germany and France and is prepared with the contribution of TÜSİAD was signed by the leading business associations of Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Spain and Poland.
The appeal was published and communicated to the EU institutions. The initiative assesses that liberalization of business visa requirements is a precondition for enhancing competitiveness, growth, reciprocal investment and trade, and job creation.
Attached are the joint press release of the nine leading business organizations including TÜSİAD and full text of their appeal.