The Council has approved new rules that make it easier and faster for the European Union to suspend visa-free short-stay travel for nationals of third countries, sharpening one of the bloc’s key tools on migration and security policy.
The revised “visa suspension mechanism” applies to citizens of non-EU countries who can currently enter the Schengen area without a visa for up to 90 days in any 180-day period. The amended regulation allows the EU to react “quicker and more vigorously” in cases where visa-free travel is abused or “works against its interests”, and lengthens the period during which a suspension can be kept in place.
New triggers and lower thresholds
The update broadens the grounds on which the EU can suspend a country’s visa-free status. In addition to existing triggers – such as sharp rises in unfounded asylum claims, refusals of entry or overstaying – the mechanism now explicitly covers:
Lack of alignment with EU visa policy, where a visa-free neighbour admits nationals of countries that need Schengen visas, creating a potential “back door” into the EU.
Investor citizenship or “golden passport” schemes, where passports are sold to people with no genuine link to the country, raising money-laundering or security concerns.
Hybrid threats and document-security weaknesses, including the instrumentalisation of migrants for political purposes.
Serious deterioration in external relations, in particular systematic human-rights violations or breaches of the UN Charter.
The regulation also lowers the numerical thresholds that help determine when “substantial” increases in problem indicators have occurred. A 30% rise in refusals of entry, overstays, asylum applications or serious criminal offences – down from 50% previously – can now trigger a Commission assessment. The threshold for a “low” asylum recognition rate is set at 20%.
Once activated, the suspension can initially run for 12 months, extendable by a further 24 months, up from 9 plus 18 months under the old rules. During this period, the Commission is expected to engage with the country concerned to remove the causes of concern before permanent revocation is considered.
A further change allows the EU to target only certain categories of travellers in the extended phase, such as government officials and diplomats, rather than automatically re-imposing visas on an entire population.
Which countries may be in the frame
The mechanism is formally country-neutral, but existing EU monitoring points to several groups of states that are likely to come under closer scrutiny.
First are the Western Balkan and Eastern Partnership partners that obtained visa-free access following liberalisation dialogues with the EU. The Commission’s seventh report under the visa suspension mechanism, published in December 2024, covers Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and – for the first time – Kosovo. All continue to meet the basic benchmarks, but the report notes outstanding issues on unfounded asylum applications, irregular stays and visa-policy alignment.
Georgia is singled out as needing “urgent action” to avoid possible activation of the mechanism, particularly on protection of fundamental rights, visa-policy alignment and unfounded asylum claims. Western Balkan partners, meanwhile, are repeatedly urged to remove visa waivers for third-country nationals viewed as posing migration or security risks to the EU, and to continue narrowing gaps with the Schengen visa list.
A second cluster are states running investor-citizenship schemes. The Commission’s monitoring reports have explicitly flagged Eastern Caribbean countries – Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lucia – along with Vanuatu in the Pacific. The EU has already fully revoked Vanuatu’s visa exemption after concluding that its “golden passports” created security and migration risks, in what remains the only complete termination of a visa-free regime to date.
Finally, the security and foreign-policy dimension brings into play countries whose alignment with EU sanctions or foreign-policy positions is contested, or where serious human-rights backsliding is documented. While those concerns have so far been addressed mainly through suspending visa-facilitation agreements – as with Russia and Belarus – the new rules create a clearer legal bridge between such behaviour and the possible loss of visa-free status in future.
Domestic politics: migration, elections and signalling
The reform lands at a time when migration and internal security are central themes in many member-state election campaigns. Council and Parliament briefings repeatedly present the tougher suspension tool as a way to respond more visibly to irregular migration, unfounded asylum claims and state-sponsored “instrumentalisation” of migrants.
Centre-right groups in Parliament have framed the mechanism as part of a broader effort to “defend the integrity of Schengen” and restrict visa-free travel for countries that threaten Europe’s security, while centre-left MEPs have emphasised new safeguards requiring the Commission to assess the impact of any suspension on civil society in the country concerned.
For governments, the updated rules offer additional levers. National ministers can request that the Commission examine specific cases, and the lower statistical thresholds make it easier to argue that action is justified when asylum or overstay figures rise sharply. At the same time, governments in candidate and neighbourhood countries face domestic pressure to preserve visa-free access, which has become a tangible symbol of proximity to the EU for citizens and businesses alike.
The regulation will enter into force 20 days after publication in the EU’s Official Journal and will apply directly in all member states. How often it is used – and against whom – will now depend on the evolution of migration flows, security concerns and political relations in the EU’s wider neighbourhood.
