Visa-free Europe to pave the way for growing Turkish economy

Leaders in the business world were pleased by a recent announcement by the European Union that visa requirements for Turkey will be lifted in July.

Foreign Economic Relations' Board (DEIK) President Ömer Cihad Vardan said, "Turkish citizens will get visa-free travel to the Schengen zone by July," satisfying one of the requests from the package offered by Turkey at the Turkey-EU Summit in Brussels.

Indicating that Turkish citizens have spent millions of euros to obtain Schengen visas, Vardan said: "The fact that visa requirements will be lifted means that an important obstacle related to our trade with the EU will be lifted."

According to Vardan, the visa application process has negatively affected Turkish trade with Europe. "Our citizens spent nearly 50 million euros to meet the Schengen visa requirement during their 813,399 brief visits to Europe in 2014 alone," he said. "In addition, there are also additional visa and travel-related costs. The bill is getting bigger when we add bank commissions, the service costs of intermediary firms, health insurance for travel, et cetera. Especially in the Turkish business world, the cost is not the only negative issue. Schengen visa requirements generate an important imbalance with the EU, our biggest trading partner. While our businesspeople go to the EU in order to sell and purchase products, market them, sign agreements, make investments and, in short, to simply do business, they run into the visa obstacle. Not only businesspeople but also their staff faces the same problem. Unfortunately, regarding this matter, the private sector has been losing its advantage over the competition since the beginning."

Chairman of the Turkey Exporters' Assembly, Mehmet Büyükelçi, said the assembly confirmed that the "Visa-free Europe" process should be sped up since the current visa issue affects exporters the most. "We express our gratitude to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and the government for their intense efforts, determined attitude and unwavering support throughout the process. As the Turkey Exporters' Assembly, we believe that lifting visa requirements will increase the people's support for EU membership, which had been gradually decreasing due to general distrust toward the EU, and will be an important milestone that will contribute to positively improving Turkey-EU relations," Büyükekşi said.