Switzerland was back in Brussels today as the European Council’s Visa Working Party met at the Justus Lipsius building to debate a packed agenda of Schengen-wide policy changes. Although not an EU member, Switzerland is an associated Schengen/Dublin state and therefore sits at the table whenever visa topics that will ultimately bind Bern are discussed. According to the official notice of meeting (No. 370371) the 14 October session focused on three headline issues: the practical roll-out of the Entry/Exit System (EES) across external borders, options for issuing limited-territorial-validity (LTV) visas to Russian nationals whose biometric data cannot be captured in their home country, and an exchange of views on timelines for the long-delayed ETIAS travel authorisation system. Delegations also reviewed Commission statistics showing that Schengen consulates handled 17 per cent more C-visa applications in the first eight months of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, a surge driven largely by post-pandemic pent-up demand from China, India and the Gulf. For Switzerland, the meeting matters because any amendment to the EU Visa Code or to the operational manuals that sit beneath it is automatically imported into Swiss law under the Schengen Association Agreement. Officials from the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) told Global Mobility News that Bern is particularly concerned about resource implications: “Each new security layer – first VIS upgrades, then EES, and soon ETIAS – forces us to adjust IT interfaces and retrain frontline staff at Swiss airports and foreign missions,” one delegate said. Corporate mobility managers should note two immediate take-aways. First, the Working Party endorsed a compromise that would let Schengen states issue LTV visas valid only for the country of entry when biometric enrolment is technically impossible—something that could speed up seldom-travelled business delegations from sanctioned regions. Second, the group signalled that the go-live date for ETIAS is likely to slip again to “no earlier than May 2027”, giving Swiss-based multinationals a little more breathing room to update traveller profiles. Although no final decisions were taken—formal adoption rests with the Justice and Home Affairs Council—the meeting sets the political direction. Mobility teams should brief travellers that processing times for Schengen visas will continue to lengthen in 2027–28 and build extra lead-time into project schedules.
