A Turkish couple have spoken of their frustration after two of their relatives’ visa applications for a family visit were rejected.
Elif Ören Acar said her mother-in-law and brother-in-law had been planning to fly to Malta this week for a three-month visit to celebrate her and her husband’s recent wedding.
But their plans were halted when they were told their visa applications had been refused by the Maltese embassy in Istanbul.
The rejections come at a time when Turkish citizens are seeing a spike in visa refusals to visit the EU, which had tripled over the last decade and were expected to surge this year, according to a July report in news outlet Türkiye Today.
The Turkish Embassy, meanwhile, said it was “aware of some visa issues especially with Turkish students, workers and citizens,” adding it was working with the Maltese government to find a solution.
Acar said she and her husband have lived in Malta for around 10 years, calling the country their “home” and saying they “love Malta”.
The couple got married in Malta in December and had planned to visit Turkey last month to hold a second wedding in front of their families but decided to cancel their plans after a family bereavement and becoming aware of increased work commitments.
We’re financially well-educated, pay our taxes and engage with our community. I am so sad
So, they decided to invite their family to visit them in Malta instead.
“We sent an invitation letter [an EU visa requirement] with both of our incomes listed,” said Acar, stressing she and her husband were financially secure, with both in the country under the Key Employee Initiative (KEI) which fast-tracks residence permits for skilled non-EU workers.
She said her in-laws paid more than €600 for their short stay visa applications, including application fees and notary fees in Turkey, and were “shocked” when they received the refusal letter.
Their applications were refused on grounds that the “justification for the purpose and conditions of the intended stay was not reliable,” according to a copy of the refusal letter shown to Times of Malta.
Slamming the decision, Acar said she was “perplexed and annoyed” by the situation and questioned what else she and her husband could do.
“We’re financially well-educated, pay our taxes and engage with our community. I am so sad; we are self-made, good people. We have built a harmonious life in Malta. Why can’t our family visit us?”
Responding to questions, a foreign ministry spokesperson said the Acars “should avail of their right to appeal”, adding visa applications were “reviewed according to their own merits and in adherence to the local legislation and the Schengen and visa codes”.
In May, visa and immigration-oriented media outlet SchengenNews reported that last year, Schengen countries rejected 16% of Turkish visa applications, accounting for 169,500 denied visas.
The same year, Schengen countries were estimated to have raked in €130 million in rejected visa application fees, an increase of €25 million on the year before, according to news outlet EU Observer.
Meanwhile, despite describing Türkiye as a “key partner” and acknowledging it as a candidate country for EU membership, a European Commission report last year said the country had not made progress on visa issues.
“No outstanding benchmarks under the visa liberalisation roadmap were fulfilled. Türkiye still needs to further align its legislation with the EU acquis on visa policy,” the report said.
Highlighting differences in foreign policy, which “constitutes an important element in the context of the EU-Türkiye relationship,” the report said the country’s “unilateral foreign policy” was at odds with that of the EU.
“Türkiye maintained a very low alignment rate of 10% with the EU stance on foreign and security policy (as of August 2023), compared to 8% in 2022,” the report said.