State of the Consular Edition 2022

Report on the state of consular services for foreigners who want to come to the Netherlands.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (BZ) wants to offer everyone good and accessible services. This applies to Dutch travelers and holidaymakers, Dutch people in need, Dutch people who live, work or study outside the Netherlands, and people who want to visit our country or settle here.

In this article we highlight the visa policy and the issuance of Schengen visas by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the year 2021.

EU entry ban, visa policy and issuance of Schengen visas

As a result of the corona pandemic, a European entry ban was introduced on 1 July 2020, with a distinction being made between travelers from safe countries (based on the health situation and corona developments) and non-safe countries outside the EU/Schengen area. Travelers from non-safe countries are not allowed access to the EU/Schengen area, unless they fall under an exception category. At the time of writing, the European entry ban is still in force.

After the discovery of the omikron variant in Southern Africa, it was agreed in a European context on 26 November 2021 to take travel measures that would delay the arrival of this variant to Europe as much as possible. EU countries, including the Netherlands, imposed a flight ban for seven countries in Southern Africa. On 20 December 2021, it was discussed in a European context that the flight bans could be lifted. The Netherlands did the same on December 23, 2021. However, the seven countries remained a very high-risk area, which meant that the EU entry ban also applied to vaccinated travelers from these countries. These measures were relaxed on 16 January 2022. In addition to measures for travelers from these specific countries, the Netherlands introduced a worldwide mandatory test as a result of the omikron variant. On March 23, 2022, this test obligation for all travelers was abolished.

Issuance of Schengen visas in corona time and afterwards

As of July 1, 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has resumed the regular visa granting process (in phases). In doing so, the Ministry had to take into account both national measures and measures introduced by local authorities in third countries. These measures affected the available personnel and logistical capacity (including that of the external service providers) and thus the processing capacity of visa applications worldwide. This led to the situation that travel to the EU was once again possible, while the treatment capacity was still starting up. The visa appointment system came under pressure at several locations in third countries, as a result of which the number of visa applications to be accepted at those locations had to be limited, resulting in waiting times. In addition to limited capacity at the time of startup, limitations of the IT systems also prevented a smooth restart.

Regular monitoring of the appointment systems led to an upscaling of the intake capacity where possible. In addition, customization remained possible at all times for urgent and/or humanitarian visa applications.

Now that the worst period of the pandemic seems to be behind us, restrictions due to Covid have recently been relaxed or abolished in large parts of the world and the Dutch Schengen visa process has been gradually opened up. The external service provider is also busy scaling up its personnel capacity, which in turn creates more opportunities for an increased intake of the number of visa applications. In many third countries, a limitation of the intake capacity is no longer necessary. However, the pressure on the appointment system (as is also the case for other Schengen countries) is still high at a number of locations. In order to meet the demand, BZ invests in optimizing IT systems and regularly scales up the personnel handling capacity by recruiting new employees. The tightness in the labor market leads to challenges in this area. Due to this tight labor market and technical challenges related to visa applications, the pressure on the central service organization (CSO) remains high.

The aim is to Schengen visa bring services to the old, pre-Corona level in the second half of 2022, enabling visa applicants to submit their visa application again within the applicable deadlines.

External service providers

The external service providers (VFS and TLS) have experienced strong financial and economic consequences of the corona crisis. As a result of the pandemic and the associated measures, hardly any visas were applied for worldwide. During the corona crisis, the role of the external service provider was nevertheless of great importance, for example because thanks to them, the visa process for seafarers in the Philippines could proceed almost without hindrance. Currently, with the exception of China, all locations of the external service providers are open again. The aim is for the Schengen visa grant to be 80% of the production in the pre-Covid year 2019 by the end of this year, which will enable visa applicants to submit their visa application again within the applicable period. This year BZ will work with external service providers at a number of new locations and will broaden cooperation with regard to other consular processes (eg civic integration and passports).

Visa representation

Mutual visa representation arrangements with other Member States, which had been suspended since the start of the corona pandemic, were almost fully resumed at the end of 2021. To submit a Schengen visa application in a country where the Netherlands has no representation, one can therefore again turn to the consulate of the Schengen member state that represents the Netherlands for Schengen visas. Public information has been adapted to this development.

Number of processed short-stay visa applications (KVV)

Top 5 purposes of residence KVV

Top 5 nationalities KVV

Source: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl (PDF download)

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Known as Khun Peter (62), lives alternately in Apeldoorn and Pattaya. In a relationship with Kanchana for 14 years. Not yet retired, have my own company, something with insurance. Crazy about animals, especially dogs and music.
Enough hobbies, but unfortunately little time: writing for Thailandblog, fitness, health and nutrition, shooting sports, chatting with friends and some other oddities.

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