11/08/2019 16:55

France is interested in children

[IMG=18232-3715] As BANKO discovered from experts in the French destination, from the 1st of November the Consulate of France changed the rules of granting visas. Now, if a child is included in a parent’s passport, a seperate visa will be granted and affixed for them as well. According to experts, a parent’s passports will have to have two free pages, preferably a double page. Also two child’s photographs will have to be presented (3,5 by 4,5 cm) along with a seperate application form. A children’s visa is free at the moment. Up to now a French consulate simply marked ‘+1’ in parents’ passport for one underaged tourist, ‘+2’ – for two etc. According to operators, such an innovation could cause some difficulties. ‘For instance, some holiday-makers may have only one free page’ explains Andrei Verkovsky, a manager of the visa department of ‘Travel Land’ company. In such cases, travellers who are in a hurry will have one solution – to make a seperate passport for a child. ‘Foreign travel passports are issued to children of any age at their parents’ request’ – says Svetlana Stroganova, a director of Euro-expo.ru. ‘It is a quick process – for only 10-12 days, up to 2 weeks’. This quick turnaround is explained by the fact that children unlike adults do not have such an amount of check-ups. Market players are also worried that with time child’s visa will be charged for. ‘Whether tourists have to pay for it or not is unknown as yet’, says Victoria Bryikina, the head of the European visa department of BSBW. Such a prognosis is not just a guess: in the German Consulate there is a similar rule, only visas for minors are charged for. It costs 50% of the consulate fee which is 35 Euro. However, according to experts possible causes for the innovation is an attempt of Schenghen consulates to come to a union standard for the issuing of travel documents.