Jean-Paul VEZIANT: “Situations like this will never happen again”

Why did Ukrainian children have to dance outside the French Embassy for three hours to obtain visas? How much will the simplified procedure ease the problem of obtaining visas? The answers to these and other questions are given in the following exclusive interview with Jean-Paul Veziant, French Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Ukraine.

“I am happy to answer the questions you ask in order to achieve mutual understanding. We were supposed to inform the tour organizers about problems with part of the group much earlier than on the day before their departure. This was not done and I am sorry about that. I can explain it by the fact that there is considerable pressure from numerous applications for visas in this season, which prevents us from working as flexibly as we would like to.”

Is this a question of some sort of technical problems or somebody’s personal responsibility?

“We can speak only about the ambassador’s responsibility. As the head of a diplomatic mission, he is responsible for everything, especially when something goes wrong. I must mention that “concerts” similar to the one that was held outside the embassy took place outside other consulates too. I do not approve of this way of using children. I would like to use this opportunity to disprove two statements that were published by the press concerning this case: first, I did not express any irritation with the musicians for the simple reason that I was not present at the embassy; second, I did not receive any calls from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting that visas be issued. The fact that every member of the group obtained a visa in the afternoon was due to a decision made by the embassy, and only by the embassy.”

Has the French Embassy learned any lessons from this incident to avoid repeating situations like that?

“The lesson is the following: it is necessary to increase the ability of the visa service to process documents by improving the office and increasing the number of wickets. Situations like that will never happen again. I have at my disposal enough funds to finance the necessary improvements. The only remaining task is to obtain approval from the Directorate General of Foreign Representatives and the mayor of Kyiv to start the work of redesigning the facility by changing the floor plans. At the same time I will have to refuse these funds if approval is not received in the coming days because, according to the budget procedure, they have to be used by the end of 2007. Then those improvements will not materialize.”

Can we expect that a simplified visa procedure will really make the process of obtaining visas easier for Ukrainians?

“The Ukrainian authorities, together with the European Commission, are the ones who should be providing information about these issues. Each of the 27 embassies of the EU member countries in Ukraine cannot do it their own way. This is a purely technical problem. In order to implement the new simplified visa procedure Romania and Bulgaria should harmonize their relations with Ukraine according to the relations that the other EU members have with your country. Were you aware of this? If anybody thinks that the simplified visa procedure involves inappropriately filled-out visa application forms, this is also an example of information that does not quite correspond to reality. We have to wait for Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with the European Commission to tell us very clearly and in detailed fashion, within the proper timeframe, about which changes will be implemented.”