US citizens traveling to Europe without a visa will be a thing of the past come 2021.
The European Union announced on Friday that American travelers will need a new type of visa -- a European Travel Information and Authorization System or ETIAS -- to visit the European Schengen Area.
The Schengen Area is a zone of 26 European countries that do not have internal borders and allow people to move between them freely, including countries like Spain, France, Greece, Germany, Italy and Poland.
Currently, US citizens can travel to Europe for up to 90 days without a visa.
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WNU Editor: The Americans are not the only ones being targeted .... ETIAS Visa for Canadians. So why the visas? The usual reasons. Illegal immigration, screening out threats, extra money for the EU coffers.
12 comments:
It should always be this way.
As much as I know Europeans need a visa to get to the US
si-vis-pasen
we remain better and much nicer without you. stay where you are. with your own culturally deprived and depraved
Yeah, Europeans need Visa's to enter the US. I did not know that US citizens didn't.
I don't know if the US is a better place then Europe, never been there but would love to visit, but Europe is far from perfect and we're importing more trouble by the day.
Hans.. I have perhaps a good perspective on this, as I've been to the US many times, have lived in Europe and Asia.
Western Europe (Germany, UK) is - in terms of living quality and education quite up there.. you have extremely clean streets, clean air, good infrastructure, well paying jobs, stability, a somewhat working political system - brexit is the exception. We get to travel very freely, with our passports being up in the top 10 for freedom of travel. (i.e. normally you only need a visa on arrival, at most in like 150+ countries .. even in Vietnam you can arrive and just fill out a form and stay two weeks, that's pretty cool)
US: A lot of concentrated wealth, a lot of credit card debt still for others, a lot of students in debt who studied the wrong thing (English major, Arts major at really expensive universities).. a hyperpoliticized work and social environment, with free speech and your livelihood under constant threat (worse than in Europe, but Europe is getting there too).. and the number of lawsuits.. it's really a cut-throat, dog-eat-dog world a bit.. if you make it into upper middle class you have almost no worries, as long as you keep "in the system".. if you don't, well, you will have two jobs easy, and always worry about losing your job..and have almost no vacation.. basically a slave who can decide where to drive to after work (directly home or TacoBells first kind of freedom)... it's a mixed bag, but in general if you go by just square footage you wouldn't believe how some people in Texas live, having the same job like you in perhaps Berlin. Two cars and what would be considered a mansion in Europe haha BUT almost no vacation, and more chances for entering debt (higher education, medical costs mostly)
Asia - huge variance (even greater than Europe's west east divide.. great than South America's divide).. Cambodia country side, you barely know about civilisation.. you might have a mobile phone, but you have barely ever set a foot outside your country.. much true for many SE-Asians, actually.. Singapore or Shanghai or Tokyo, you are living at the edge of technology and income. But only if you are either connected/from a wealthy or political family (China), or you are very educated/competitive (rest of competitive cities).. Overall, believe it or not, the social peace in many Asian nations feels better.. as punishments are quite harsh for those who violate the law.. people just do it less.. smoke weed in Singapore? Happens, .. but you would be nuts to do it publicly. And 1,000x so for anything harsher.. Talking serious prison time and sometimes more. You even think a few times if it's worth crossing a street as pedestrian when the light is red and no car around lol .. and you litter less etc.. it's just not worth the trouble.. other places in Asia feel all more relaxed, more at peace and people hang out more together (young/old), it feels, there is less of a separation, but you surely have the rich and poor divide.. but the rich don't mind the poor as much, in Saigon you might sit in a 5star hotel and outside you have poor people hanging out and no one cares.. try that in Singapore (poor people are normally pushed to the city outskirts), or try that in Europe/US.. usually the poor are moved further outside cities (except in e.g. San Francisco, which takes a more "humane" approach.. but it doesn't work, because many of the poor in SF do drugs, bad drugs.. in Asia, you have people doing bad drugs too, like meth, but it is much more rare.. most poor people are just poor but work through the day (e.g. clean streets, but they then sleep in a cilivised manner on the street and not defecate on the street like in SF).. AIR is really terrible though in many Asian cities, and you will feel it and it will impact your life expectancy if you stay more than half a year, it's not a joke :)
Have not been much to middle East and Africa..
You never really appreciate the value of something until you lose it.
Bob you cannot afford McDonalds without great effort and a lot of scrimping. We know you never get to Europe.
:-)love you too
Anon
I have been to Europe.
I used to go to Tim Horton's but they changed their coffee supplier at about the same time Mcd's did too and now Mcd's has the better coffee. One thing interesting about morning coffee at Mcd's is the number of elderly women, about my age who find reasons to come and talk with me. The favorite start-up line, is to ask if I save the cup stamps that accumulate to, I think 7 and then you get a free coffee. I give those stamps to my girlfriend. You know to help her out a bit.
I doubt very much if you have any idea who Tim Horton was. If you ask me nicely I will tell you about Tim and give you a story about when I met him.
The only reason I would possibly go back to Europe is to walk the Camino de Santiago again, everything else is over priced and over hyped.
Tim put $$$ in your tin cup.
Anon
You can't imagine how close you are.
I first met Tim when I was 10 and a member of an Optimist Boys Club. He and the goalie at the time, I think it was Ed Chadwick, came to talk to the boys. Showed us his famous slap shot and all.
When I was 17 walking with my friends down Yonge St in Toronto we went into a hole in the wall hamburger joint done up in Toronto Maple Leaf Blue and white ceramic tiles. Tim was trying to start up a burger chain. At that time the Jr burgers were a dime each and four of us ordered four Jr burgers each and asked him to put the four patties in one bun. Imagine Tim standing there frying burgers for 4 kids, 16 burgers at a dime each. They were really good. I suggested to him that he should go into donuts though because there was no way he should be standing there frying burgers on Yonge St. Man it was demeaning. He changed to donuts pretty soon thereafter.
All I got was a signed Tim Horton hockey card I sold for $1,500 ten years later. It gave me the down payment on my first house back in 1971.
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