The European Union said it has earned €3.4m from rejected Schengen visa applications submitted by Nigerian citizens, Nairametrics reports
This, according to Schengen visa statistics on Saturday, occurred from Nigerian visa applicants in 2023.
Globally, the EU governments raked in €130 million from rejected Schengen visa applications with African and Asian countries shouldering 90 per cent of the costs, according to reports from EUobserver.com on Saturday.
The report also indicates that African countries particularly, are disproportionately impacted, with rejection rates as high as 40-50 per cent for Ghana, Senegal, and Nigeria
Notably, the figures do not account for the costs incurred from being unable to travel for business and leisure or the expenses for legal advice and private agencies involved in processing visa applications.
Founder of LAGO Collective and senior visiting fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, Marta Foresti said, “Visa inequality has very tangible consequences and the world’s poorest pay the price”.
“You can think of the costs of rejected visas as ‘reverse remittances’, money flowing from poor to rich countries. We never hear about these costs when discussing aid or migration, it is time to change that,” she added.
The EU estimates that about half of all irregular migrants within the bloc’s 27 member states result from visa overstays.
“Last year, over 83,000 non-EU citizens people were sent back to their countries, a return rate of 19 per cent, according to the EU Commission.
“Over the past year, the EU has begun to use visa restrictions as a political tool, employing Article 25a of its 2019 visa code a provision that allows visa restrictions for countries with low rates of migrant returns.
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