Prague - The Czech Republic has retaliated on Tuesday against Canada for introducing visa. The Czech government has brought its ambassador to Canada home for talks, Czech PM Jan Fischer said on Tuesday morning.
Fischer also said that Canadian diplomats will need visa to enter the country.
Canada has taken steps to curb the flood of asylum seekers from the Czech Republic. As of this morning any Czech citizen travelling to the country is obliged to obtain a visa. For the first 48 hours, Czech visitors will be able to apply for visa on arrival at Canadian airports.
After the grace period expires, Czechs will have to travel to Vienna, Austria to apply for visa there, since there is no consular section in Prague.
Czech officials roundly critized Canada's move as "inappropriate and unnecessary".
"We are partners and this is not the way to communicate with your war ally. I feel bitter," Foreign Minister Jan Kohout said in an interview for Czech TV on Monday night.
Meanwhile, Brussels said Tuesday afternoon that the EU would not impose visa on Canadian.
The second top
The Czech Republic is now the second top source of asylum seekers in Canada. Since the 2007 visa lift, nearly 3,000 asylum bids have been filed by Czech citizens, largely coming from the Roma community.
"The sheer volume of these claims is undermining our ability to help people fleeing real persecution," Immigration Minister Jason Kenny said in a statement.
"All too often, people who really need Canada's protection find themselves in a long line, waiting for months and sometimes years to have their claims heard. This is unacceptable," he added.
According to Canadian Soa World Magazine, more than half of the claims are abandoned or withdrawn before a final decision is made by the Immigration and Refugee Board, indicating that many claimants may not be genuine refugees.
"The visa process will allow us to assess who is coming to Canada as a legitimate visitor and who might be trying to use the refugee system to jump the immigration queue," Minister Kenney said. "It is not fair for those who have been waiting patiently to come to Canada, sometimes for years, when others succeed in bypassing our immigration system."
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A recent report by the Immigration Refugee Board found scarce evidence of state-supported persecution against the Roma community. Most of the Czech asylum seekers' applications are therefore denied. Of 2,000 bids around 130 were granted asylum status.
Ottawa regularly reviews its visa policy. The conditions for visa-exemption must be met by the countries that have visa-free status.
The visa requirement now means that Czech nationals travelling to the country have to prove they have enough money to cover their stay in Canada, they are in good health, they are not a security threat to Canadians and they do not have a criminal record. It is up to the visa officer to decide whether the applicant meets all these conditions.
Canada has also slapped visa restriction on Mexican visitors. Only in 2008 there were 9,400 asylum bids.
Upset travel agents
Czech travel agents said it would affect thousands of Czech tourists as well as some businessmen.
"To change the visa system over night is shameful and it is a huge problem (for travel agencies). A plane with 200 passangers, half of them Czech, is to travel to Canada to tomorrow," spokesperson of the Czech Travel Agent Association Tomio Okamura said.
There are about 4,000 Czech visitors travelling to Canada every summer.
