Hungary made to wait on US visa exemption

US president George W. Bush signed a security package defining new criteria for visa exemption on Friday. According to Napi Gazdaság, it is not clear which countries will be eligible for visa exemption, and even more uncertain when exemption will be introduced. The Hungarian American Coalition has no doubt that Hungary will qualify, with word from Washington stating that it has met criteria based on the proportion of rejected visa applications. The threshold was was recently raised from 3% to 10%.

Hungary may be the first country to be added to the visa exemption program, but Hungarian citizens are unlikely to be allowed to enter the US without visas by the beginning of 2008. Tamás Magyarics, analyst with the Hungarian Foreign Institute, has announced that no breakthrough in the case of visa exemption is expected in the next eighteen months due to congressional and presidential elections.

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