The rate of rejection of applications for Schengen visas from Türkiye continues to increase, with Estonia, Finland and Belgium topping the refusal rates in 2022, data showed.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has described the visa problem with some Western countries as "political blackmail," saying the issue will be resolved soon.
About 906,000 Schengen visa applications were made from Türkiye in 2019, with 9.7 % of them being rejected. The rejection rate increased to 15% in 2022.
The comparison has been made with 2019 figures because of travel restrictions in 2020 and 2021, when coronavirus was at its peak.
According to data from the Schengen Visa Info website, 15% of the 778,000 Schengen visa applications made from Türkiye in 2022 were rejected.
In the same period, Russian visa rejections amounted to 10%, despite Western sanctions over the country's war on Ukraine.
As many as 1,517 applications were made from Türkiye to the Estonian Embassy in Ankara for a Schengen visa in 2022. But 52.1% of these applications were rejected, meaning Estonia did not issue a visa to one in two applicants.
The refusal rate of visa applications made through the Estonian Embassy in Ankara in 2019 was 16.95%.
After Estonia, Finland had the second-highest rejection rate in Schengen visa applications made from Türkiye last year.
In 2022, 4,073 applications were made to the Finnish Embassy in Ankara. Of these, 1,558 were not granted visas and the rejection rate was 40.6 %.
The rate is striking as the mission in Ankara rejected 23.20% of the 3,676 applications made in 2019.
Belgium's Consulate General in Istanbul did not grant visas to 2,566 out of 7,211 applications made in 2022, with the rejection rate being 37.7%. Thus, Belgium rejected more than one out of every three applications.
The rejection rate of the consulate in 2019 was 33%.
Last year, 13,553 applications were made to Sweden's diplomatic mission in Türkiye, of which 22.7% were rejected. The refusal rate was 20% in 2019.
The EU countries where Turks applied for visa the most last year are Germany, Greece, France and Italy, respectively.
More than 591,000 of the 778,000 applications made from Türkiye for the Schengen visa was made to the diplomatic missions of these four countries.
With 21%, Germany had the highest rejection rate among the countries with the highest number of applications. France followed it with 13.4%.
Italy, on the other hand, rejected the least number of visas -- 7%.
In 2022, 223,699 people from Türkiye applied to Germany's diplomatic missions in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir for Schengen visas. But more than 48,000 of these applications were rejected, and rate of refusal exceeded 21%, almost double than that in 2019.
More than 253,000 applications were made to German diplomatic missions in 2019, and the number of rejections was recorded as 30,823, which is 12.1%.
