Czech, Greek and Estonian tourists and business travellers are likely to be able to travel to the US without visas by the end of 2008, a US official said Wednesday, according to dpa. "I think it will be in the fall of 2008 when the Czech citizens will be able to travel to the United States without a visa," Richard Barth, a senior official at the US Department of Homeland Security, told reporters during his Prague visit. Barth was in Prague Wednesday to negotiate a bilateral agreement that is required for a country to enter the so-called US visa waiver programme, under which citizens of 27 countries do not need visas to enter the United States. He is also to visit Estonia and Greece during the ongoing European trip, he said. "There is a high probability of bringing them to the visa waiver programme this year," he told reporters, adding. "Beyond that we don't have clear plans." Former central and eastern European communist states, which are now close US allies and members of the European Union, have long complained that - unlike the citizens of most old EU countries - their citizens are still required to have visas in order to enter the US. So far only formerly-communist Slovenians can travel to the US without visas. Barth's statements have thus cooled hopes of speedy visa-free US travel in Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania or Bulgaria. The US Congress has recently passed a new bill that introduces changes to the rules for visa-free travel. The legislation makes it easier for the new EU members to enter the programme, while it toughens the regime for the citizens of its existing members. "They will all have to meet the same requirements," Barth said. Washington wants Prague to place a radar base for its controversial missile defence system on Czech soil, but officials have insisted that visas are not being scrapped in a barter for the military base. "They truly are not related. They are on a separate track," said US Ambassador to Prague, Richard Graber.
