In his letter of 13 August entitled US Visa for Maltese passport holders (TMID 13 August), Dr Raymond Bonnici complained about the need for Maltese citizens to obtain visa in order to visit the United States.

Much of the letter dealt with irrelevant issues, such as a speech by Franklin Roosevelt of some 60 years ago, or his medical service and visits to the US while serving with the British Armed Forces. But he did raise a real question when he wrote: “Why has the United States discriminated between the 25 EU countries and only waived the visa application for 15 of those, including Slovenia which, like Malta, is one of the new members?”

There are presently only 27 countries in the visa-waiver programme, so Malta is far from being singled out. For a country to have all of its citizens visit without a visa, a number of conditions have to be met (full details are at the US State Department’s website). Two of those conditions are perhaps worth mentioning here: A country must issue machine-readable passports and that is not yet the case in Malta. Also, a country must have a record of cooperation in extradition matters and here the Rezaq case may well stick in official American memories.

Dr Bonnici also argued that there is a lack of reciprocity, claiming that “ironically, US citizens are not required to get a visa when visiting our country.” This is false.

US visitors do need a Maltese visa, which is normally issued at the airport upon arrival. But that is not always assured: On two occasions this American visitor to Malta was denied that standard three-month visa upon arrival at the airport for reasons that were never explained to me.

John C. Lane

New York