(Updates with Frattini, Chertoff, Frattini quotes)
By Manca Ulcar
LJUBLJANA, March 13 (Reuters) - The European Union and the
United States tried on Thursday to iron out differences over
Washington's decision to sign separate visa deals with
individual EU members instead of the bloc as a whole.
EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini and the
bloc's Slovenian Presidency started talks with U.S. Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, after tensions within the
EU and with Washington over the visa deals.
Frattini insisted Brussels wants all EU member states to be
treated the same way and to enter the U.S. visa waiver programme
by October, even if political talks with individual states could
continue in parallel.
"My proposal will be to go ahead with political discussions
from now until the summit in June ... and then to introduce visa
waiver programmes for all members states in October," he said.
"One thing is to sign a memorandun of understanding which is
a political document, another is to negotiate on a bilateral
basis what electronic travel authorisation should be," he added,
referring to a U.S. requirement that citizens from countries in
the visa waiver programme fill out forms on the internet ahead
of flying to the United States.
Most EU states are already part of the U.S. visa waiver
programme, which allows people to travel without visas, but not
11 of the 12 mostly ex-communist countries that joined the bloc
in 2004 and 2007, along with older member Greece.
The United States wants deals with individual states, but
Chertoff brushed aside differences ahead of the talks.
"I think that reports on differences of opinions are much
exaggerated," Chertoff told reporters.
"We do our arrangements with individual countries but I
think we can do it in a way that is consistent with the EU
principles but that will still allow the countries which are
ready to do so without delay," he added.
EU diplomats agreed on Wednesday to defuse the crisis by
adopting a "twin-track" approach allowing both individual and EU
talks, Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra told Reuters.
One EU diplomat said Chertoff and Frattini could agree on a
similar stance on Thursday.
While Brussels has pressd for a blanket agreement for all EU
countries not yet in the programme, some of the bloc's new
member states, eager for quick visa-free travel, broke ranks and
agreed to forge ahead with individual pacts.
Washington signed separate deals with the Czech Republic,
Estonia and Latvia, under which these new EU members agreed to
enhanced cooperation on air security in return for a quick
prospect for entering the visa waiver programme, undermining EU
unity on the issue and angering a number of other EU states.
Hungary expects to sign a similar deal later this month.
(Reporting by Manca Ulcar, Ingrid Melander, and Zoran
Radosavljevic, writing by Marja Novak and Ingrid Melander)
