The European Union, EU, plans to increase visa fees starting Tuesday, according to Schengen visa statistics released on Saturday.
According to the article, effective Tuesday, African nationals will pay €90 rather than €80 for a Schengen visa application. According to the research, the EU gained €3.4 million from rejected Schengen visa applications submitted by Nigerian individuals.
According to the data, African citizens received 704,000 rejected visa application responses in 2023.
“This means that €56.3m went up in smoke, considering that visa application fees are not refundable,” it stated.
The report stated that a large number of refused visa applications cost African nationals millions of dollars each year, with the payments known as’reverse remittances’ benefiting only the EU countries.
“African nationals spent €56.3m in visa application fees in 2023, representing 43 percent of all expenses; rejection rates in 2023 were especially high for African and Asian countries, which bear 90 percent of all expenses.
“Expenditures are to increase by 12.5 percent starting next week as the EU raises visa fees for adults from €80 to €90 on June 11, following a recent decision by the EU Commission,” it added.
Algeria was the nation of origin for the most rejected applications in 2023, accounting for 23.5% of the total amount spent on failed applications.
The country also had the second-highest number of denied applications compared to all: 289,000 out of 704,000, or 42.3% 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.
It went on to say that Moroccans, the top visa applicants from Africa this year, received the most visa rejections.
“A total of 437,000 visa requests filed by this nationality group were rejected in 2023, representing 62 percent of the total. As per expenses, Moroccans spent €10.9 million on rejected visa applications in 2023,” the report indicated.
Given that the majority of African nations have among the lowest wages in the world, it was further said that Africans were disproportionately affected by those costs.
The analysis states that 43.1% of the total number of rejected visa applications in 2023 will come from African applicants.
According to a recent EU Observer report, the denial of Schengen visas will bring in €130 million in revenue in 2023.
“In the previous year, this amount stood at €105 million, showing an upward trend of Schengen visa expenses as well as rejection rates,” the report stated.
Marta Foresti, the founder of LAGO Collective, 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.”
