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| Bush Seeks to Expand Visa Waiver Program |
| Talin, 28.11.2006 |
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| Tuesday November 28, 11:42 am ET
By Jari Tanner, Associated Press Writer
Bush Vows to Help Ease U.S. Travel Restrictions for Estonians, Others
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) -- President Bush on Tuesday pledged to help ease travel restrictions on citizens of Estonia and some other nations that are not part of the U.S. visa-waiver program.
"I am pleased to announce that I am going to work with our Congress and our international partners to modify our visa-waiver program," Bush told reporters during a brief visit to Tallinn. "It's a way to make sure that places like Estonia qualify more quickly for the program and, at the same time, strengthen the program's security components."
Inclusion in the visa waiver program is a delicate issue for Estonia and other former communist countries that have joined the European Union and are close allies of Washington.
EU officials have long insisted visa waiver deals must be fully reciprocal, but U.S. officials claim Greece and nine of the 10 new EU members still fail to meet all the U.S. criteria necessary for joining the program.
Slovenia is the only new EU member state to be part of the visa-waiver scheme, which comprises 27 countries, most of them in western Europe.
Estonia's President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and Prime Minister Andrus Ansip "made it clear to me that if we're allies in NATO, people ought to be able to come to our country in a much easier fashion," Bush said during a stopover in the Estonian capital before heading to a NATO summit in neighboring Latvia.
Ilves said Estonia would soon adopt biometric passports that he said would make it easier for the country to join the visa-free travel program.
The first sitting U.S. president to visit Estonia, Bush praised the Baltic nation's democratic and economic reforms since breaking free from the Soviet Union in 1991.
"You made a very successful transition to democracy, and helping other nations to do the same is a vital contribution to world peace," he said.
Estonia, the fastest growing economy in the EU, is trying to help foster democracy in other former Soviet republics, such as Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
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Address : Euro-Brew Ltd., Hlboká 22, 917 01 Trnava, Slovakia
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