Overview

A coalition of seven Central and Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia), each a strong ally of the United States, sought to work to create conditions—policy and legislative—that would ultimately lead to the granting of visa-free status for their citizens to travel to the United States.

Challenges

Expansion of the visa waiver program faced opponents at multiple levels and branches of the U.S. government, including many Members of Congress who believed that the visa waiver program should have been abolished completely based upon national security considerations.

Strategic Recommendations

For this engagement, Blue Star Strategies, LLC, developed, planned, and implemented a comprehensive, coordinated, and multi-track strategy that educated key U.S. policy and decision makers of the need to reform the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP) in a way consistent with U.S. and Europe’s common security and economic goals and that would ensure inclusion of the U.S.’s allies in Central and Eastern Europe—EU and NATO members—in the VWP. 

Program Highlights

With its team of seasoned strategists, Blue Star Strategies, LLC worked closely with the White House, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, and both houses of Congress to strengthen supporters—and neutralize opponents—of VWP modernization and expansion.  The team engaged key allies in government, business, various relevant ethnic-American community organizations, and public policy institutions as well as with the editorial boards of key media organizations. 

In this context, the team facilitated written communication and in-person meetings between members of the Coalition, including its countries’ Ministers, Ambassadors, and embassy staff and key Members of Congress and their staff; high-profile Congressional hearings focusing exclusively on reforming the VWP hosted by the House Subcommittee on Europe; successive, iterative discussions and round-tables hosted by area think tanks; and opinion pieces in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and others.

Results

As a result of these efforts and strong bipartisan leadership and support, the U.S. Congress ultimately passed—and the President signed on August 3, 2007—legislation that set forth a path to visa-free status for countries that make substantial improvements in their security capacity—the central substantive agenda of the Coalition’s strategic message.

 

On October 17, 2008 at the White House and in the presence of representatives of each of the nations of the Coalition, President Bush announced the official accession to the VWP of nations which had met the criteria for admission into the program and others on track to be admitted.  Subsequently, each of the countries of the Coalition for Visa Equity has either joined the program or begun the process towards full participation.