EU Visa Policy: What kind of Solidarity?

In the absence of a clear indication in the Treaties as to what solidarity entails, three visions of solidarity have emerged: a supranational/functional, an intergovernmental/voluntary, and an individual-focused/constructivist vision. Following X and X v Belgium and the link between visa policy and the EU’s questionable strategy of externalisation of international protection, it can be concluded that visa policy is characterised by the absence of individual-focused solidarity, and does not offer any expression of the central place that human rights protection has in the EU’s identity as enshrined in the Treaties. This may be partly reconnected to the unclear scope of the fundamental rights protection framework applicable to visas under international law. Visa policy tends to be characterised by inter-state and state-centred solidarity which takes a supranational form in the field of policy formulation vis-à-vis third countries and an intergovernmental form in the field of implementation on the ground. Supranational solidarity has not proven to be necessarily effective in overcoming the lack of convergence of interests between the Member States in areas which are sovereign sensitive, or to be capable of doing so in a way that upholds EU principles. Intergovernmental solidarity in the implementation of the policy is functionally driven and progressively characterised by EU norms and procedures, but it is unlikely that the search for effectiveness will lead to the supranationalisation of this sovereign sensitive field.