The Europeanisation of Consular Affairs: The Case of Visa Policy

In recent years there has been an increasing degree of interest in the literature regarding the changes that the process of European integration has meant for the external administration of the member states. The current paper seeks to contribute to the study of this question through the analysis of an area that until now has received little attention: the Europeanisation of the consular function concerning the issuing of visas. Since the end of the 1990s, the process of legislative harmonisation of visa extensions represents one of the consequences of the common policy of EU external border management. The current paper analyses this phenomenon of convergence and raises questions concerning the main consequences for the consular administrations of Schengen member states in third countries.

About the author

Ana Mar Fernández has a B.A. (1st class) in Political Sciences and International Relations from the Free University of Brussels, a M.A. and a Ph.D. (1st class and European Mention) in Political and Administrative Sciences from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Before joining the Department of Political Science and Public Law of this University in 1998, she was Junior Research Assistant at the Centre for the Study of International and Strategic Relations of the Free University of Brussels. Her main area of study is the European integration process. She is particularly interested in the EU institutional dynamic and its impact on the external administration of the member states.

Contact the author by e-mail.