The Commission of the European Union has decided to open infringement procedures for Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, and Lithuania for not implementing the 2D barcode on the uniform format for visas.
According to the Commission, letters of formal notice regarding the opening of the procedures have already been sent to these four countries, and now the EU authorities will be waiting for an answer on the matter.
The 2D barcode was introduced back in 2020 to prevent counterfeiting and falsification of the visa sticker.
The Member States were immediately notified about the introduction of a 2D barcode on the uniform format for visas, more specifically on April 30, 2020.
They had a two-year period of time to implement the 2D barcode, with the deadline expiring in May 2022.
As the Commission notes, all four Member States concerned – Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, and Lithuania – are still not printing the 2D barcode on the visa stickers they issue.
For this reason, the Commission opened the procedures and these countries now have two months to respond to the letter and address the shortcomings that have been identified by the Commission.
In the absence of a satisfactory response, the Commission may decide to issue a reasoned opinion.
Back in 2022, when the Commission announced the implementing decision, it said that the newest generation of visa stickers had been compromised, with many counterfeited documents detected in the Member States.
For this reason, it said that additional rules and measures should be introduced in order to further increase the security of the visa sticker and prevent any forgery that might happen in the future.
As the Commission explained then, by adding a digital seal that is cryptographically signed, the authorities are able to control as well as verify the authenticity of visas by comparing data that is printed and data on the digital seal.
Moreover, it noted that the digital seal was especially important in cases when access to the Visa Information system is not possible.
The addition of a digital seal, cryptographically signed, that includes the data printed on the visa sticker should enable control authorities to verify the authenticity of visas by comparing the printed data and those included in the digital seal.
The same specified back then that the cryptographically signed digital seal should meet the specifications of ICAO Technical Report Visible Digital Seals for Non-Electronic Documents and stressed that all data required by the Technical Report should be encoded in the digital seal.
