Traveling in Europe will soon be a little more difficult for some people. If you are planning to go to Europe from a country which enjoys visa-free access currently, you will have to bear in mind new requirements.
These will be necessary to abide by starting in 2021. European Union Travel Information and Authorization System, or ETIAS, this new protocol will become an obligatory requirement. Although not exactly a visa, it will be an application for each traveler, from countries who can enter visa-free into Europe, will have to complete. More details can be found on https://www.etia.com/
If you are not coming from a country which allows visa-free travel, you will have to obtain a Schengen visa to enter the EU and Schengen area. If you already have a Schengen visa, you fall into a category of people who are not from visa-exempt countries. This means you will not have to apply for the ETIAS. If you are planning to visit the rest of Europe from the United Kingdom, you will have to wait and see what happens because of the uncertainty which Brexit has brought.
Once you do go through the ETIAS application process, you can enter into any EU country within the Schengen area as often as you wish. Since the ETIAS can be valid for up to three years, you will be able to enter and travel around Europe for as long as you want for a long time. The one caveat here is that you will be unable to stay for more than 90 days within 180 days. For long-term travelers and digital nomads, this means you can be the EU for half the year if you wanted to!
Why Are There New Travel Requirements for Europe?
Nobody likes filling out additional forms. However, there are some sound reasons for these new requirements being implemented. There have been ongoing threats to the national security of several countries in recent years from terrorism to migrants. In response to this, the European Union has taken steps to add additional layers of security. One of these is the ETIAS, which is projected to thwart risks and identify them before they ever occur.
ETIAS Europe will be the organization tasked with discerning, who is a risk to the EU and who can travel freely within the Eurozone. The new requirement of visa-exempt travelers will assist the border control and enforcement authorities of EU member nations to keep potential threats out while allowing tourists in. ETIAS’s implementation is scheduled for 2021.
Benefit of the ETIAS Program
Thanks to the strengthening of Europe’s borders, if you decide to travel to Europe soon, you will be safer. While it would be nice to live in a world where there were no threats and risks to the welfare and endangerment of the public’s well-being, that is unfortunately not the case. With over 30 million people have entered the Schengen area in 2014 alone, this means there is a need to keep both travelers and locals safe in