|  Hungary’s five parliamentary parties are in full agreement on the desirability of giving Hungarian citizens the opportunity to travel to the United States without a visa as soon as possible. The experts of the parliamentary groups will begin talks soon on the draft of the bills which are to regulate the necessary bilateral Hungarian-US data exchange. A Thursday, May 8 , meeting of the five parliamentary party group leaders and relevant parliamentary committee heads at the Foreign Ministry – at which U.S. Ambassador to Hungary April H. Foley was also present – resulted in the necessary decisions for scrapping the visa requirement.
Senior State Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, Marta Horvath Fekszi said at the regular government press conference that there are likely to be two international agreements for Parliament to approve – one on the exchange of data on persons suspected of terrorism and one on providing information about lost and stolen passports. Another document – on data exchange of criminal databases – depends on the outcome of talks between the European Union and the United States; if they are able to agree, there will be no need to sign a separate bilateral Hungarian-American document. Ms Horvath Fekszi noted that only a short time is available for working out the details of the necessary bills: Parliament’s spring session closes on June 9, and the drafts should be submitted by May 23. Even then, they can only be included on the agenda by deviating from House rules. By involving experts delegated by the parties, the Foreign Ministry aims to avoid a lengthy debate in Parliament’s plenary session, because of fears that if there is a slippage, the new U.S. administration taking office next January could stall for many years the Hungarian entry to the Visa Waiver Program.  The Memorandum of Understanding, which was the first step to establish the legal framework for visa-free entry of Hungarians to the United States, was signed in Washington D.C. on March 17. Hungary can only join the Visa Waiver Program after the United States has deployed its security systems and a package of four or five implementation regulations has been drawn up. Set conditions also include bringing the rejection rate of Hungarian visa applications down to below ten percent.
(May 8, 2008) |