Yemisi Izuora
Going forward and specifically by February 2020, Nigerians will need to pay a fee of €80 instead of €60 as they did so far, when applying for a Schengen Visa from Nigeria.
Under the reviewed Visa charge children too, will have to pay €40 instead of €35, as it is currently.
Nigerians will be subject to several changes in terms of visa application procedures, rules and benefits, starting from Monday, February 2, 2020.
Due to the implementation of the Updated Schengen Visa Code, adopted by the EU Council in June 2019, all representative missions of the Schengen Countries located abroad are obliged to apply the new rules, including the ones in Nigeria.
“Since Regulation (EU) 2019/1155 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 amending Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Visa Code) is binding in its entirety, and is directly applicable in all EU Member States in accordance with the Treaties, all Schengen countries, including Lithuania, will apply it from 2 February 2020,” an official from the Information Monitoring and Media Division of Lithuania explained for schengenvisainfo.com.
The new rules also permit Nigerians to submit an application up to six months in advance of their trip, instead of three as it is now, and foresee a harmonized approach to the issuing of multiple entry visas with lengthier validity to regular travellers with a positive visa history.
According to SchengenVisaInfo.com, member States that are not represented in Nigeria in terms of visa admission, are now obliged to cooperate with external service providers, in order to facilitate visa application for travellers.
The external service providers are allowed to charge a service fee, which cannot be higher than the visa fee. This means Nigerians applying at an external visa service provider may have to pay up to €160 per visa application, if the external service providers set the maximum service fee permitted, which is €80.
In addition, the updated Visa Code introduces a mechanism that assesses whether the visa fees should change, every three years. Another mechanism that will use visa processing as leverage will be introduced, in a bid to improve cooperation with third countries on readmission.
According to Gent Ukëhajdaraj from SchengenVisaInfo.com, due to this mechanism the fees may increase even to €160, if the EU authorities see it necessary.
“A visa fee of €120 or €160 will apply to non-cooperative third-countries, in cases when the EU Commission considers that action is needed in order to improve the level of cooperation of the third country concerned and the Union’s overall relations with that third country,” Ukëhajdaraj explains, adding that this provision shall not apply to children under 12 years old.
The mechanism may also shorten visa validity, and introduce prolonged visa processing periods.
Statistics by SchengenVisaInfo.com show that in 2018, Schengen embassies and consulates in Nigeria processed 88,587 visa applications, 44,076 of which were rejected thus marking the highest rejection rate of 49.8% among all third-countries in need of visas.
France was the top favorite country for visa submission, as 33,308 of the applications submitted in Nigeria were for Schengen visas to France, followed by Italy with 13,295 and Germany with 10,847 applications.
In terms of expenditures, in 2018, Nigerians spent €5,315,220 in visa applications to Europe, €2,644,560 of which money was spent by applicants who had their visas rejected.