Should Greece Be Admitted to the Visa Waiver Pilot Program?
Testimony Before the
Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims of the
Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives
by Wayne Merry
The Atlantic Council of the United States
(speaking in a personal capacity)
Thursday, February 10, 2000
Mr. Chairman,
Is Greece eligible for the Visa Waiver Pilot Program? Arguments in favor include encouraging tourism, reducing the costs of consular services, foreign policy considerations, and even sentiment. With a background in Greek political and security affairs, I wish to address issues of law enforcement.
The visa is first and foremost an instrument of American law enforcement at our national borders, as are Coast Guard cutters and drug-sniffing dogs in airports. The visa is a screening mechanism and a deterrent to prevent criminal and other ineligible persons entering our territory. Waiver of the visa requirement is therefore a suspension of one of our frontier defenses, the furthest forward of those defenses in fact. The United States should set aside this tool only for countries whose own standards and performance in relevant aspects of law enforcement are comparable with our own.
Last spring the Clinton Administration established two criteria for Greece to qualify for visa waiver; neither has been met.
The first criterion was reform of the hopelessly outmoded Greek passport issuance procedures to prevent large-scale fraud. At present, there is little to prevent an enterprising retailer of false passports from obtaining a new passport every day of the week in different cities; there is also little effective control of document fraud in obtaining passports. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service offered its Greek counterparts assistance in creating a country-wide data base to deal with these problems, but to no avail. During a recent visit to Athens, a senior American official told me privately there has been no Greek action on this issue at all.
Worse, for many years Athens has been a major regional entrepot for fraudulent visas and passports (including lost and stolen American passports). This problem has greatly increased with the opening of the country's northern borders with its Balkan neighbors. Were Greece added to the Visa Waiver Pilot Program, the incentive for passport and other document fraud would obviously skyrocket. In the absence of effective controls by Greek authorities, the result would be a flood of ineligible persons seeking entry into the United States using forged Greek passports.
Note, please, that I am not talking about Greek citizens overstaying their allotted time as tourists or taking employment inconsistent with their status in this country. I am talking about people around the world looking for a gap in our border controls who would find a gaping loophole in Greece were the visa requirement lifted. Surely, the most elemental and necessary standard of law enforcement to justify visa waiver is effective control of passport issuance. Greece has not yet attained this standard.
The Administration's second criterion was Greek adherence to the so-called Schengen regime, the European Union's common frontier and crime-fighting accord. Let me make an important distinction: membership in Schengen is not the same as fulfillment of its standards. It is no secret that Greek entry into Schengen early this year was a political decision of the European Union made despite serious reservations by many law enforcement officials of the other member states. It is no secret these reservations about Greece persist. In January the Italian Government requested a special bilateral summit meeting to address deficiencies in Greek performance and their impact on Italy. The BBC aired a program (in which I took part) on prime-time television questioning whether Greece was ready for Schengen. More recently in Athens, a top government official responsible for public order admitted to me off the record that full adherence to Schengen standards would require the complete closure of the country's northern borders.
For many years Greece was denied entry into Schengen because it could not control the movement of illegal refugees into the European Union due to its proximity to the Middle East, its long coastal frontiers, and its notoriously poor police work. In recent years this problem has increased enormously by huge numbers of Balkan peoples fleeing south across the borders with Albania, the former Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria. For the United States, this is a direct problem only insofar as these persons obtain false passports in the flourishing Greek personal documents market. However, a very real and more serious concern for us is the permeability of Schengen standards in Greece as a medium for international organized crime.
The Schengen regime is a defense structure against the global trade in narcotics, arms, prostitution, money laundering, and so forth. International organized crime groups view Greece as a weak spot in Schengen and have established themselves on Greek soil, not to exploit the modest domestic market but with the entire European Union in mind. This is the nightmare facing law enforcement officials throughout the EU with Greece only a half-hearted member of the regime. By lifting the United States visa requirement we would enter the nightmare and compound the already excessive burden on our law enforcement agencies in dealing with global crime.
More broadly, Schengen is a test of a government's commitment to standards of law enforcement. Many other European countries have met the test and thus met our standards for the Visa Waiver Pilot Program. Greece has not.
Mr. Chairman, I strongly believe a third criterion should be added and I am appalled the Administration neglected to do so. The most basic and fundamental requirement of national law enforcement in the world today is the fight against organized terrorism. Greece takes satisfaction in the fact that its domestic terrorist problem is not among the world's worst. That satisfaction has produced a complacency reflected in the worst record on counter-terrorism anywhere on earth over the past quarter century. The salience of this problem for the U.S. Congress is that the primary target of this terrorism is the United States of America and its representatives.
I refer to the Greek domestic terrorist organization called "17 November". In nearly twenty-five years of lethal activity, not a single member of this group has ever been identified, apprehended, or punished in any way. Last year, this group carried out five attacks, nearly killing the German and Dutch ambassadors (the terrorists are learning new weapons and tactics, so have had a few near misses). This group is well-organized and disciplined, has recruited a new generation of killers, and is supremely self-assured. Worse, it is unopposed. Recent public statements by the terrorists show they know they are unchallenged by law enforcement and pretty much free to proceed as they choose. During a recent visit to Athens I had occasion to raise this issue with senior responsible government officials and with some of the country's top commentators. The response was a generalized shrug of indifference. I did not hear a single firm and unequivocal statement that these terrorists should be defeated and the country's laws enforced.
Greek official passivity on counter-terrorism is relevant to the visa waiver question on two grounds. First, if a government performs so poorly and is so negligent in fighting home-based terrorism, how can it be expected to be serious or competent in any other form of organized crime fighting?
Second, "17 November" has American blood on its hands. Five of our country's servants have died, but had all the bombings and other attacks against Americans succeeded, that toll would be at least fifteen times as high. Our Government designates five cities in the world as "Critical Threat" from terrorism. Athens is one. Our taxpayers spend more money protecting our representatives in the Greek capital than anywhere else on earth. The dollar savings (not to mention the human savings) we would garner from Greek arrest of the terrorists dwarf any potential economy at the Athens Embassy from elimination of the visa requirement.
Until the Greek Government takes the minimal step of apprehending the murderers of our diplomatic and military representatives, I believe the United States should deny approbation to Greek law enforcement through waving the visa requirement. We must not signal that passivity against terrorism is acceptable. At the most basic level, without the visa requirement as a deterrent, what would prevent the terrorists coming to this country to continue their activities on American soil if they chose?
Mr. Chairman, many people see the visa requirement as an impediment to human and business contacts or as a lack of American openness to the world. It may be these things, but the visa is also as much a tool of law enforcement in today's world as the metal detector or fingerprints. When we deprive ourselves of this tool for any country's citizens, we must be certain that country is dedicated to law not only in principle but in practice, that it has a record of strong enforcement rather than just strong rhetoric. The Hellenic Republic fails these standards and should not be admitted into the Visa Waiver Pilot Program. I urge the Administration to communicate these realities clearly and forcefully to the Greek Government so it may understand what needs to be done and why.
Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to appear before your Committee. Thank you.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
