EU, US defuse crisis over visas

The European Union and the United States agreed yesterday to defuse a crisis over visa deals by allowing talks between Washington and individual EU states to run in parallel with EU-US negotiations.

Washington's decision to sign separate visa deals in recent weeks with several central European countries instead of with the EU as a whole sparked tensions within Europe and across the Atlantic.

Critics said this divide-and-rule approach broke ranks with EU solidarity and infringed on the bloc's competence on visas.