NEW DELHI – The authorities in Italy are working to reduce the processing time for all Indians applying for Schengen visas.
Italian Ambassador to India, Vincenzo de Luca said his country is currently dealing with a high number of Schengen visa applications but added that they are trying to speed up the process as much as possible.
In an interview, the ambassador claimed that the number of visas Italy issued to Indians in the first seven months of this year increased by 38 percent compared to the same period last year.
“The processing time for business and tourist visas is 48 hours after receiving the application,” Ambassador de Luca said in his interview with Business Line.
The envoy elaborated that Italian authorities are also working to increase the number of permits issued to Indian professionals.
“We have increased the number of work permits for Indians to 15,000 last year. This year, we expect an even higher number of permits,” Ambassador de Luca said and added that Italy is seeing an increase in the number of Indian students and 500 visas have been issued this year in this regard.
The official also disclosed that Italy and India were negotiating a mobility agreement to create opportunities for health professionals and nurses.
“We are negotiating a mobility agreement with India, and hopefully, it will be finalized by the end of the year. The agreement will create opportunities for Indian health professionals and nurses to work in Italy,” Ambassador de Luca concluded.
The announcement by the Italian ambassador comes days after German Schengen visa processing time was reduced for citizens of India. The deputy head of mission at the German Embassy in India, Georg Enzweiler, confirmed that the processing time has been reduced to eight weeks.
“We have increased our staff substantially in Mumbai and I think the waiting time has substantially gone down. We are at roughly eight weeks now. We hope to get better with regard to that because of course it is what we want,” Enzweiler said at a press conference.
The official elaborated that the German Embassy will continue to make more efforts to bring down the processing time further, adding that one of the country’s goals is to attract more visitors from India.
“We are very happy to have increasing numbers of tourists from India to Germany. This is one of our goals to attract more people from India to visit Germany and we are doing our best to cope with the visa applications,” Enzweiler added.
