The European Union has announced plans to increase visa fees for African nationals starting Tuesday.
According to The PUNCH, this was made known by the data from Schengen visa statistics released on Saturday.
The report highlighted that beginning Tuesday, African nationals would need to pay €90 instead of €80 for a Schengen visa application.
It was noted that the EU generated €3.4 million from rejected Schengen visa applications submitted by Nigerian citizens.
The data revealed that in 2023, African nationals received 704,000 negative responses to their visa requests.
“This means that €56.3m went up in smoke, considering that visa application fees are not refundable,” the report stated.
The report emphasized that the high number of rejected visa applications has caused African nationals to spend millions annually, with the fees, known as ‘reverse remittances,’ benefiting only the EU countries.
In 2023, African nationals spent €56.3 million on visa application fees, which represented 43 percent of all expenses.
Rejection rates in 2023 were notably high for African and Asian countries, bearing 90 percent of all expenses.
Starting next week, expenditures are set to increase by 12.5 percent as the EU raises visa fees for adults from €80 to €90 on June 11, following a decision by the EU Commission.
Algeria was identified as the country of origin for most rejected applications in 2023, representing 23.5 percent of all amounts spent on rejected applications.
The country also had the second-highest number of rejected applications, with 289,000 out of 704,000, accounting for 42.3 percent of all requests.
“This nationality group is especially impacted by visa rejections because it has high application rates and they are affected economically when placing visa applications,” the report added.
The report also noted that Moroccans, who were the top visa applicants from Africa for the year, had the highest number of visas rejected. A total of 437,000 visa requests filed by Moroccans were rejected in 2023, representing 62 percent of the total.
In terms of expenses, Moroccans spent €10.9 million on rejected visa applications in 2023.
It was noted that Africans were significantly impacted by these expenses, given that many African countries have some of the lowest wages globally.
According to the report, the amount of Africans rejected visas constituted 43.1 percent of all the revenue generated by rejected applications in 2023.
A study by EU Observer found that Schengen visa rejections generated €130 million in 2023, compared to €105 million the previous year, indicating an upward trend in both Schengen visa expenses and rejection rates.
Marta Foresti, founder of LAGO Collective, commented on the issue, stating, “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.”
