Rabat – Morocco has ranked ninth in terms of Schengen visa rejections in 2022, according to Schengen Visa Info, a site specializing in news about the European visa.
The North African country made the ranking based on the rejection rate per 100,000 applicants, the website showed, scoring a little over 315 rejections on average.
“While every fourth Moroccan received a negative answer on their application, the total number of denied applicants reached 119,346 in 2022,” Schengen Visa Info said.
Cape Verde topped the list, ranking with 844 rejections per 100,000 applicants.
Of the over 17,000 applications filed by Cape Verdeans in 2022, over 5,000 were rejected, indicating a rejection rate of over 28%.
Cape Verde was followed by Kosovo, Suriname, the United Arab Emirates, and Tunisia, who all ranked in the top five by rejections per 100,000.
They were followed by Algeria, Lebanon, Qatar, Morocco, and Armenia.
For Moroccans, every fourth applicant was rejected, while every third Tunisian received a negative response. Algerians meanwhile had every second application rejected, signifying continued difficulties North Africans face to obtain a visa to Europe.
In 2021, France announced that it was cutting the number of visas for citizens of those three countries by half, alleging that their governments had not helped in repatriating irregular migrants.
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With a considerable number of their visa applications being intended for France and processed by France’s consular services, the move from Paris has harmed the acceptance rates for Schengen visas in the region.
The concerns were exacerbated as news continued coming out concerning the mistreatment of applicants by consular services and the mishandling of personal data.
The financial cost to applicants has also been of concern. In 2022, Morocco had the second highest expenditures on rejected applications, reaching $10.5 million.
