The document that allows travel to any of the Schengen countries is no longer available to citizens. The reason? If, on the one hand, embassies and consulates of foreign countries cause delays on the way to obtaining a visa, on the other hand, it is local tourism and intermediary companies.
Currently, mass discontent with the problem has spread to social platforms. The main reason for the problem is that people who want to travel abroad cannot freely make an appointment on the embassy website to obtain a visa. When applying to local tour companies, they say that only VIP seats are available and the price varies between 200 and 300 AZN. If you have an urgent flight, the price is likely to go up even more. This amount does not include between 70 and 100 AZN paid for the visa. Just call any tourism company to check it.
“Caspian” newspaper article on the subject.
Ways to get a date without bribery
It is observed that there is cooperation between local tourism companies and intermediary companies that provide support services for visa applications in creating problems on social platforms and travel groups.
Written statements and reviews also confirm the depth of the problem. “Please tell me how to get a visa appointment without bribery”; There are dissatisfactions such as “it is impossible to go to embassies for free to find a meeting place.” “You’ve taken over that place too! Well done. Although it was difficult, we were able to find a time to meet with the embassy, and now you’ve taken over the entire time and turned this place into a market. There will probably be a find solution to these problems, but understand that making money like this is immoral”, – wrote Dr. Elimkhan Jafarov about participation in one of the tourist companies.
Travel blogger Elshan Ismayilov expressed his discontent with the German embassy in our country on his Facebook profile: “At the moment, appointments have been sold out since May. Although we have repeatedly called the embassy and complained, they do not lend us attention. I personally know dozens of people who are forced to buy a house for 300 or 400 manats.” “Either the consul or the Visametrics company betray you.”
We were unable to obtain a response from any of the embassies to which we addressed questions on the subject.
State Tourism Agency: “We are informed”
To our worrying question, the State Tourism Agency gave the following answer: “We are aware of the mentioned issue. In bilateral meetings with ambassadors of foreign countries, the mentioned issue is periodically raised to optimize the situation related to visa procedures. At the same time, the problem is brought to the attention of the relevant state authorities. In addition, the tourism industry maintains regular conversations with public organizations about solutions. We believe that finding a solution to the problem is an important point for the development of tourism relations. bilateral.
“The rate should not exceed 30 euros”
The Home Office responded to our question: “This is not a question related to the Home Office.” The question we asked the head of the Attorney General’s Anti-Corruption Department remained unanswered even after a month.
The head of the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Emil Safarov, answered our question and said that the points we mentioned in our application “On simplification of visa processing between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the European Union” during Joint Visa Simplification The Committee between the European Union and Azerbaijan, established on the basis of the Agreement, including bilateral meetings held with the Member States of the European Union, affirms that the parties repeatedly raised in the meetings: “According to paragraph 3 of Article 6 of the Agreement signed on 29 November 2013 If Member States cooperate with a third-party service provider for visa processing, the third-party service provider may charge a fee for services, which will be proportional to the costs incurred in the performance of their work and will not exceed €30 According to paragraph 1 of According to article 7 of the Agreement, the diplomatic missions and consular units of the countries. Parties to the agreement may issue visas. Within 10 calendar days from the date of receipt of the application and the required documents, you must make a decision on the visa application. According to paragraph 3 of that article, if applicants must make an appointment to submit the application, the meeting should normally take place within two weeks from the date of the meeting request.” An appeal was addressed to the Union and its member states.
People are reluctant to travel to the Schengen area
According to tourism expert Rahman Guliyev, our people avoid traveling to the Schengen zone and show interest in other countries due to difficulties in obtaining a visa. The expert recalls that between 2010 and 2015 there was a long queue to obtain visas in the diplomatic corps: “Then people filled out their questionnaires not online, but in person, collected the required documents and went to the consulate. There they were received directly by the “The issuance of visas was directly under the authority of the consul or his assistant. But now citizens are facing great difficulties, because occupying an online meeting place is a very serious problem.”
