The European Commission Wednesday adopted two reports concluding that Colombia and Peru fulfil the relevant criteria, to being negotiation of visa waiver agreements between each of these countries and the EU.
"The significant improvements accomplished by Colombia and Peru in many areas in recent years mean that it is no longer justified to maintain a visa obligation on citizens of these countries visiting the Schengen area for short stays," said Cecilia Malmstrom, Commissioner for Home Affairs, in press statements.
Once the reports have been discussed in the appropriate committees and groups of the European Parliament and the EU Council of ministers, the Commission will seek authorization from the Council to negotiate short-stay visa waiver agreements with each of the two countries.
If the Council grants such an authorization, negotiations could start in the beginning of 2015.

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Colombia and Peru fulfil the criteria for visa-free access to the Schengen area 

After a 17-hour flight and 8 hours on a bus we finally reached Huaraz, a city of 120,000 inhabitants at an altitude of 3100m which we had chosen as our starting point. Straightaway we met Vladimiro, our Peruvian contact and all-round organiser of the bureaucratic side of the expedition, who introduced us to another very important member of the expedition, Pio Polo, the cook. Over the following days we bought enough food to stay at altitude for a month; with all our technical and culinary equipment we had to enlist the help of nine mules and two horses to transport almost 300kg of gear so we could build a palace at 4300m. 

5 Tips for Traveling in Peru

[BLOG]  Of all the countries in Latin America, Per� probably has the best food. There is so much variety. I already told you about my favorite dishes, and there are many other good ones.

The locals here call it the Iron Bridge, a narrow, graceful span across the Chili River with pale green garlic fields below and the cleft-topped Misti volcano rising above it in the distance. Travel books, tour guides and residents all proudly point to the bridge, a fluent expression of the Industrial Revolution, as the work of Gustave Eiffel, the 19th-century French engineer who built the Eiffel Tower and designed the iron skeleton inside theStatue of Liberty.

Except that it is not. And neither are a great many other bridges and buildings around Peru and the rest of South America that are popularly attributed to the famous Frenchman.

The Am�rica Econom�a magazine has once again ranked Peru's universities, placing Pontificia Universidad Cat�lica del Per�, better known as the PUCP, as the top university in Peru.

The University Cayetano Heredia is at number 2, having kept the same position since it made it up there in 2012, and San Marcos, the only state university to make the list, came in at number 3, also the same as last year. The University of Lima stepped down one, switching places with the University of Pac�fico. 

Benedicto Jimenez, a police detective who became famous two decades ago with the capture of Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman, was sent yesterday to the maximum security prison of Piedras Gordas in north Lima, following his arrest in Arequipa on the weekend.  He is being held in a protected section, away from other inmates and from possible outside contacts. 

During the month-long Guiding Overseas Linked with Development Scheme (GOLD) trip, the women visited Lima and Tacna in the south and Sullana in the north to train Peruvian women in leadership skills, social media and training skills to the project can continue long after their return to the UK.