A few weeks ago, during a short stay in a holiday town, a young waiter paused while clearing my table, and we exchanged a few words. The conversation lasted no more than a couple of minutes, yet it stayed with me long after I had left the town.
He had recently graduated from university and had been admitted to a master's program in Hungary. The acceptance letter had arrived, his plans were set. His future seemed to be taking shape. And then, suddenly, everything stopped. Can you guess why? He could not obtain a visa from Hungary. Just like that, an opportunity he had worked toward for years slipped out of reach – not because he lacked the qualifications, ambition or acceptance, but because a visa was denied.
He did not sound angry. If anything, he sounded as though he had come to accept that this was simply how life worked. Before walking away, he mentioned that another university in Spain had admitted him. He was preparing another visa application – another set of documents, another round of uncertainty, another wait.
What stayed with me was not the names of either university, but the way he spoke about uncertainty as though it were simply part of life. Losing an opportunity was disappointing, but accepting uncertainty as a permanent feature of everyday life was something else. It left me wondering whether this sense of limbo had become an ordinary part of life for many young people in Türkiye. With that brief conversation, this article began to take shape in my mind.
The young waiter's experience is not unique. Students now find themselves talking about visa appointments before they even settle on a university. Researchers hesitate before confirming conferences. Businesspeople postpone meetings because nobody can say when a decision might arrive. Even a family visit is increasingly planned around administrative calendars rather than personal ones.
For many Turkish citizens, these experiences are most closely associated with the European Union because Schengen countries are where such frustrations are felt most often. For many applicants, obtaining a visa has become the greatest challenge, while the uncertainty over when, or even whether, the process will end has become the real source of anxiety.
That uncertainty reveals a contradiction that is difficult to ignore. Universities promote exchange programs. Governments celebrate academic partnerships. Businesses invest in new markets. Yet many of the people expected to turn those ambitions into reality spend months waiting for appointments or decisions before they can even begin their journey.
The consequences rarely make headlines because they unfold quietly. A holiday can be postponed. A missed academic semester cannot. A researcher who loses the opportunity to present at an international conference simply returns home and waits for another chance.
The scale of the problem becomes clearer through the numbers. Türkiye has become one of the world's largest sources of Schengen visa applications. In 2024 alone, Turkish citizens submitted nearly 1.2 million applications, the highest figure ever recorded according to the European Commission. At the same time, roughly one in seven applications was refused, almost double the level seen a decade ago.
Yet the numbers tell only part of the story. For many applicants, especially students and young researchers, the real loss begins long before a refusal arrives. A semester starts. A scholarship deadline passes. A conference ends. Time itself becomes the obstacle. Around 10,000 Turkish students are accepted into Erasmus programs each year, yet universities have repeatedly reported that visa delays prevented some participants from beginning their studies or exchanges on time.
Against that background, even modest improvements attract considerable public attention. The EU's recent decision to make it easier for certain Turkish applicants with a strong travel history to receive longer-term multiple-entry visas is a welcome step. Yet the public reaction says just as much as the decision itself. Predictability has become so scarce that even limited improvements are greeted with relief.
Visa procedures were designed to distinguish genuine travelers from irregular migration risks. That distinction becomes less convincing when applicants with established travel records, university admissions, or documented business purposes remain trapped in prolonged uncertainty. Most people can live with strict rules. They struggle far more with rules whose timing seems impossible to predict.
The issue, however, extends beyond administrative efficiency. Law is concerned not only with authority itself but also with how that authority is exercised. Public trust depends on transparent procedures, reasonable timelines, and decisions that arrive before opportunities disappear. Without those qualities, administrative systems gradually lose credibility, even when they remain fully lawful.
These administrative experiences also shape how countries are perceived abroad. American political scientist Joseph Nye argued that attraction often succeeds where pressure does not. Sometimes that attraction begins at a consulate counter. People rarely separate a country's image from the institutions they encounter first.
The same principle applies to relations with Türkiye. Governments may sign new agreements, universities may expand exchange programs, and businesses may invest in new partnerships. Their value is often judged somewhere less visible: at consulates, visa application centers, and throughout the procedures that determine whether legitimate travel can actually take place. Legitimate travel should become easier while national borders remain secure. Those objectives reinforce one another.
Visa difficulties have long been part of public debate in Türkiye. Yet that brief conversation with the young waiter revealed the human dimension of the issue more clearly than any statistic could. His disappointment was understandable. More striking, however, was the ease with which uncertainty had come to be accepted. Perhaps that is the most troubling part. The burden of today's visa systems is measured not only by the number of refusals, but also by the growing number of people who begin planning their lives around waiting.
