<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>rmind</author><text>Just a few points:&lt;p&gt;- Tit-for-tat response is a geopolitical reality. Regardless whether you think it is pre-school model or not, this is what pretty much all countries do, as it is a perfectly rational way (and sometimes even the only way) to defend your interests. By rational I am talking about the Game Theory kind of rational. :)&lt;p&gt;- You suggest to look at each EU country individually (just also keep in mind that there are no border controls beetween the EU countries in the Schengen Zone). In such case, should we also look at each US state individually (because they are also not uniform, e.g. some are much poorer than the others)? EU as a whole has much greater weight and leverage. The point I am making here is that it is another geopolitical reality: countries use their weight and, for example, US uses its weight to exert its influence pretty much all over the world. Well, so does the EU in this case, whether the US likes it or not.&lt;p&gt;- Your point about the citizens of those countries being disproportionate overstayers is not true. As a matter of fact, the overstay rate of these countries is lower than some of those which are already in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), e.g. compare those fives countries with Spain, Greece, Hungary, etc. So, if there is some kind of threshold they cross, then it should apply to the current VWP countries to, shouldn&amp;#x27;t it? Please the see offical US Homeland Security report as a reference here:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dhs.gov&amp;#x2F;publication&amp;#x2F;fiscal-year-2017-entryexit-overstay-report&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dhs.gov&amp;#x2F;publication&amp;#x2F;fiscal-year-2017-entryexit-o...&lt;/a&gt;</text><parent_chain><item><author>zaroth</author><text>Tit for tat is a great model in pre-school. The more mature response is to investigate the underlying issues.&lt;p&gt;Instead of putting your fingers in your ears and yelling “We are EU, you must treat us all the same” there could be some acknowledgement that travelers from those countries are disproportionately overstayers and there is a justifiable reason to need to more closely track them.&lt;p&gt;If US travelers are overstaying in any particular EU countries, I would expect and appreciate the same measures would be put in place.&lt;p&gt;Policy should be set based on the reality on the ground and not merely policital fantasy.&lt;p&gt;If those countries citizens are not in fact disproportionate over-stayers than the US should change their policy and apologize.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: This short brief [1] seems to imply there’s room for improvement on the US side. I don’t quite understand why the subjective visa refusal rate is so high for some of these countries when the overstay rate is so low. Unless you argue that the refusals are preventing the overstays, but that is very much unproven.&lt;p&gt;[1] - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.heritage.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;2018-01&amp;#x2F;IB4812.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.heritage.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;2018-01&amp;#x2F;IB4812....&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>rmind</author><text>The article mixes two seaparate issues:&lt;p&gt;- EU is introducing ETIAS, an electronic authorisation system which is pretty much modeled after the US ESTA system (used by visa-free nationals). It will apply to all countries which currently enjoy the visa-free regime with the EU and that includes USA. So, technically it is not a visa, but your details will be pre-checked and it will cost €7 (compared to $14 for US ESTA). Ironically, after Brexit, this requirement will also apply to UK.&lt;p&gt;- There is a separate dispute between EU and US, because US imposes visas on five EU states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Romania and Cyprus). According the EU law, all EU countries should be treated equally or otherwise reciprocal measures should apply. There have been calls within the EU to respond tit for tat and impose EU visas on US citizens, if the issue does not get resolved soon.&lt;p&gt;As an EU citizen, I can just add that I support both initiatives.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021</title><url>https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/us-citizens-need-visas-to-visit-europe-in-2021/index.html</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>learc83</author><text>If people from Hawaii were overstaying in Japan, the US wouldn&amp;#x27;t be fine with Japan requiring visas for residents of Hawaii.&lt;p&gt;Part of the purpose of the EU is to present a united front when dealing with other countries. Collective bargaining doesn&amp;#x27;t work if you don&amp;#x27;t act collectively.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;If US travelers are overstaying in any particular EU countries.&lt;p&gt;The only way to do this would be to require Visas to the whole EU because of the lack of internal border controls (for most of the EU).</text><parent_chain><item><author>zaroth</author><text>Tit for tat is a great model in pre-school. The more mature response is to investigate the underlying issues.&lt;p&gt;Instead of putting your fingers in your ears and yelling “We are EU, you must treat us all the same” there could be some acknowledgement that travelers from those countries are disproportionately overstayers and there is a justifiable reason to need to more closely track them.&lt;p&gt;If US travelers are overstaying in any particular EU countries, I would expect and appreciate the same measures would be put in place.&lt;p&gt;Policy should be set based on the reality on the ground and not merely policital fantasy.&lt;p&gt;If those countries citizens are not in fact disproportionate over-stayers than the US should change their policy and apologize.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: This short brief [1] seems to imply there’s room for improvement on the US side. I don’t quite understand why the subjective visa refusal rate is so high for some of these countries when the overstay rate is so low. Unless you argue that the refusals are preventing the overstays, but that is very much unproven.&lt;p&gt;[1] - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.heritage.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;2018-01&amp;#x2F;IB4812.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.heritage.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;2018-01&amp;#x2F;IB4812....&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>rmind</author><text>The article mixes two seaparate issues:&lt;p&gt;- EU is introducing ETIAS, an electronic authorisation system which is pretty much modeled after the US ESTA system (used by visa-free nationals). It will apply to all countries which currently enjoy the visa-free regime with the EU and that includes USA. So, technically it is not a visa, but your details will be pre-checked and it will cost €7 (compared to $14 for US ESTA). Ironically, after Brexit, this requirement will also apply to UK.&lt;p&gt;- There is a separate dispute between EU and US, because US imposes visas on five EU states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Romania and Cyprus). According the EU law, all EU countries should be treated equally or otherwise reciprocal measures should apply. There have been calls within the EU to respond tit for tat and impose EU visas on US citizens, if the issue does not get resolved soon.&lt;p&gt;As an EU citizen, I can just add that I support both initiatives.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>US citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021</title><url>https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/us-citizens-need-visas-to-visit-europe-in-2021/index.html</url></story>