Without getting into Brexit (let me make this very clear) but I accept vaguely related, it fills me with sadness that a consequence of Brexit, and perhaps Scotland leaving the Union, and perhaps a general move to more countries becoming more isolated, is that spending more time than short holidays in other parts of the world is becoming ever more difficult. As Brits., we will not be able to spend more than a rolling 90 days in any Schengen country, America is a lot more generous at six months, and many other countries follow a similiar approach, but the length of stay permitted is still realtively.
I know longer visas are possible, but they are often diffiuclt to obtain and time consuming, and usually intended for work purposes or to settle.
With leisure time increasing and many people having the funds to go often for longer periods this seems to me of great sadness. After all we dont chose where we are born, and we are all children of this planet.
It is also possibly an undesirable feature of nations transforming themselves into large blocks with common rules throughout. Obvioulsy Europe is a particulary good example of this, but so is Australia and NZ and effectively America and even Russia.
Discuss!!!?
Just over 2 years ago my wife and I visited China on a tourist visa for quite a long period. Apart from having to go to the Chinese Embassy in London (where the officials were excellent, polite, and most helpful, our trip was so relaxed it was hard to believe we were in China. Not at all as we expected. Our visas were valid for a long period and we were free to travel extensively. Maybe the EU could look at how China does it!
More and more countries go back to the notion that they want to control who is allowed to stay inside their respective countries rather than taking the word of others for it. Clearly, a movement in that direction will mean a step back towards Visas and restricted movement, but as I can see with the countries involved, that was the point? To make it more difficult to cross borders, to keep unwanted foreigners out?
In more than one way, this could actually help in situations such as we are facing now with Covid, where the closing of borders per se won’t be the extraordinary but the normal.
In more than other ways it may also mean that countries whose inhabitants have fled for bigger and better deals abroad and who could do so without a form, might actually keep their intelligent people inside and try to finally get themselves sorted out, rather than brain drain into places where they will earn better money but work way below their qualifications.
Yes, travelling is more difficult, but then again, travelling will become more difficult anyway considering that COVID is not yet off the table and won’t be for a long time. Also the last summer and probably this winter might get some people to finally discover their own countries a bit better instead of easyjetting to overcrowded tourist traps. Sometimes i find it absurd that there are lots of people who know every island in the med but have never ventured in the more scenic parts of their own countries. Why not look at it as a chance?
Fenland_Flyer wrote:
Maybe the EU could look at how China does it!
Why should they? Schengen has the rule that you can spend 90 days per calendar year within it’s borders or else get a Visum. 90 days is more vaccation than most people have anyhow, by a long run. Third countries (outside EU and Schengen) can not expect and should not expect any special rules here, again why?
Third countries (outside EU and Schengen) can not expect and should not expect any special rules here, again why?
Going back to first principles, why not?? If you prevent somebody legally working (which you do) why not let them stay longer? After all, they are not stealing local jobs so they must be bringing money into your country. As the saying goes: what is not to like? I would really like somebody to stay in my hotel and just keep giving me money, and if I get enough money then I can buy a TBM 
The scenario where visas deliver a function is where you want to keep e.g. gangsters from a certain country out. You sell the visas relatively cheaply but the process enables you to carry out a background check, and you can refuse the visa without stating a reason.
IMHO a max stay of 90 days is purely punitive i.e. “you are not in the EU so you must be seen to pay a price for that”. If you were running a country of your own (or, say, an island) and somebody turned up and started spending wads of money in your local community, would you throw them out after 90 days? I don’t think so Of course the devil is in the detail e.g. you would make sure they never become entitled to free schooling, free health services, etc.
Perhaps one valid reason for limiting residence is that some % of people will disappear in your country and once below the radar they can work in the black economy. Whether visas have any effect on that, I have no idea, but I don’t think they have in Europe because it is so easy to enter, and disappear in.
Peter wrote:
Going back to first principles, why not??
Because countries want to protect their border and therefore want to control who is in the country. Different countries have different tools implemented to do this. Some have shorter visa validity, others (if I remember correctly e.g. China) require you to present a return ticket to enter (which would actually not a good practice for Europe to copy).
90 days on a tourist visa is no relevant restriction for the vast majority of visitors – you can obviously never defend why 10 more days would not be acceptable but somewhere you need to make the cut. It’s not only (actually not at all) about taking away jobs as you can’t do that on a tourist visa anyways. It’s about controlling who is in the country (and yes, people who spend more than 90 days in a country might be those rich silver surfers who travel the world for the entire year – but the probability that such a person is involved in some illegal activity becomes higher the longer they stay…).
P.S. to the OP: Extremely unlikely that the Scots will leave the union anytime within the next 20 yrs…
If you allow people to stay then they are eligible for permanent residence at some point and that is big no-no for electorate at least in the UK.
In the end, if someone wants to move to and live in the UK, they cannot do it after 1-Jan-2021, therefore it will be reciprocated by an EU, for example.
Going back to the OP: the world is much more scared and xenophobic than it was 20 years ago.
9/11 changed a lot although the death toll is very small comparing to annual road deaths in 2001 (42000). But people are scared and fear is easily expoitable…
I think we will see more restrictions and not less.
There was a huge long discussion on this some years ago… which descended into a massive “refugee housing” virtue signalling session.
The general process for getting citizenship in a country of arrival has not changed massively in many decades. It has always been roughly 5 years in the UK, for example. It doesn’t make a difference whether you previously got a visa to stay for 90 days, 180 days, or whatever. You still have to leave when that expires, unless you e.g. apply for asylum, and that has (since for ever, and certainly when my family came here in 1969) required showing that your life is in danger in the country of departure (or some variation of that). Of course, if say you came to the UK from Australia, or from France 50 years ago, you could not show that, so you had to wait… or fulfil some other criteria.
In the EU/schengen, the right to remain and work has been formalised, but that is not and never has been the process anywhere else in the world (with perhaps some exceptions, by mutual agreement).
A friend of mine lived and worked in the US for quite a few years, as a CFII, but when his visa expired he still had to leave.
I agree things are not going to get easier, with CV19 having dropped a huge spanner into the system. There are bound to be processes introduced for a rapid lockdown of travel, for example, because nobody thinks this will be the last virus around. The next one could be much worse. Also the damaged economy of just about every country is not going to encourage happy opening of borders; people are a lot more miserable and isolationist when they have less money floating around.
There are “nationalist” drifts in Europe, on top of that.
Fenland_Flyer wrote:
Just over 2 years ago my wife and I visited China on a tourist visa for quite a long period. Apart from having to go to the Chinese Embassy in London[…]
Fenland_Flyer wrote:
Maybe the EU could look at how China does it!
Are you seriously suggesting that the EU should require all British visitors to have a visa to enter the EU? That would sound very vindictive to me!
Surely having 90 days travel without a visa and only needing a visa if staying longer or intending to work is far preferable to requiring a visa for every trip!? I can’t see how having polite friendly staff at the embassy would make up for having to go there in the first place!
Certainly I’d prefer to be able to enter the UK visa free for a period instead of needing a visa for every trip.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Also the last summer and probably this winter might get some people to finally discover their own countries a bit better instead of easyjetting to overcrowded tourist traps
By which you mean Switzerland?
I don’t think there is any intrinsic economic value in spending money where you live, the idea is that somebody, anybody is spending money where you live.
Our summer holiday this year was close to home, within a thousand miles, and that was fine. In the absence of legal constraints (which won’t last) flying holidays are better for me closer to home, in the US, and motorcycling holidays are better in the Alps. I go where it’s best for the activity planned, and that is never going to change. I could lie around and be served poolside without traveling but that’s not what I do on holiday.
@Fuji_Abound, non working visas are typically not that hard to get for longer periods than 90 days, in most countries, assuming the applicant has enough resources to sustain himself. It’s multiple renewals that are by my observation harder to get. The French for example apparently require language proficiency at some point, something US citizen friends of mine did not for some inexplicable reason achieve after a number of years in the French countryside. They are back in the US now for that reason. My legal situation is pretty good in this regard, between my wife and I we have the right to reside in UK, Schengen Area and US. Sometimes it’s an advantage to look ahead and team up 
