Currently, nearly 75 million European citizens from five member states - Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Poland and Croatia need a visa to travel to the US. MEP of the Bulgarian Socialist Party Momchil Nekov used the ongoing negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) as a pretext to ask about the position of the European Commission on the issue.

"As a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development my work is mostly focused on the sector of agriculture,” Momchil Nekov said in an interview for Radio Bulgaria. “The sector equals just 5% of the entire agreement, but it is very important because it contains the high standards of the EU. In this context, Bulgarian farmers would come in dual competition - on the one hand with European partners, and on the other - with US competitors if the agreement was signed. The existing visa regime puts them in an unequal position."

Momchil Nekov has already received an answer from Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, the chief negotiator of the agreement with the US, in which she explains that short-term visas are not part of the TTIP.

"However, she admits that the lack of reciprocity in the visa regime is a sensitive issue and would have an impact on business, especially on farmers. I was told that the five EU countries that have visa regimes with the United States were subject to discussions in 2014 during an EU-US ministerial meeting in Washington. The question was also placed outside the context of TTIP in February this year during the meeting of senior officials in the Latvian capital city of Riga. Also in the framework of the new reciprocity mechanism of the EU issues may be resolved during the tripartite meetings between the EC, the US and the Member States concerned. The last was held on January 13, 2015. Commissioner Malmström has said that if there was no positive assessment on the report on reciprocity, by the end of April 2015 the European Commission will have to decide whether to impose a temporary measure to stop the visa-free regime for certain categories of U.S. citizens.”

Momchil Nekov says that specific financial instruments for the promotion of agricultural products from the EU to the United States to assist the targeted presentation of the quality of European products could be included in the recommendations of the European Parliament to the EC that leads the negotiations. The MEP believes that such instruments may include subsidies for participation in exhibitions or special forums to present European agricultural goods. Mr. Nekov talked about his ideas during the conference he organised in Sofia on April 3, entitled "Opportunities and challenges before European agriculture in the framework of TTIP discussions.” For him it was important get acquainted with the problems of Bulgarian producers, in order to present them to Brussels.

According to Momchil Nekov, MEPs from the Agricultural Committee insist on maintaining European standards related to food safety and human and animal health. They have called on the negotiating team to ensure uniform conditions, particularly in terms of products where direct competition with U.S. products would put pressure on European producers.

"What I can assure you is that all members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, regardless of political affiliations, oppose the agreement in its current form when we are talking about agriculture. At a hearing commissioner Cecilia Malmström said that if needed the whole section on agriculture would be scrapped in order to protect the high standards of the EU.”

English: Alexander Markov