Bush, in the Baltics to attend a session of a NATO summit, said Nov. 28 that he would propose changing the criteria for joining the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP). But ultimately the decision lies in the hands of Congress.

"Congress historically plays a big role in these issues," said Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. "I think, in general, that Congress will be receptive to [a change], but the devil is in the details."

Currently, citizens of Central and East European countries that joined the EU in 2004 — with the exception of Slovenia — still need a visa to enter the United States, while Americans can travel freely to those countries.

Two days after Bush's announcement, officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security held a meeting in Washington, D.C., with diplomats from European countries vying for entry into the VWP. Czech media reported that the meeting concluded with a pledge from the Americans that the VWP would begin focusing on admitting countries that manage to adopt strict new security requirements for passports, and less on the percentage of rejected visa applications from citizens of those countries.

Currently, one of the key criteria for a country to join the VWP is that 3 percent or fewer of its citizens are rejected when applying for a U.S. visa. The Czech rejection rate hovers around 10 percent.

Czech President Václav Klaus heralded Bush's announcement Nov. 30, saying that when the two met during the NATO summit in Riga, Latvia, Bush had assured him the visa issue would be resolved in the Czech Republic's favor.

But Congress' reaction will be hard to gauge, said Schmitt.

"It's a complex thing," he said. "I think a fair number of the Congress sees Central and Eastern Europe as allies. So they're also not going to be picking a fight where they don't need to."

The question hanging over all of this is whether Democrats will be more receptive than Republicans, who lost control of the House of Representatives last month after 12 years in control. Ostensibly, visa policy is a bipartisan issue, but Czechs have reason to think the Democrats might be more on their side.

In the run-up to the midterm election, U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich — a Democrat representing the city of Cleveland, Ohio, which has a substantial Czech population — drafted a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, urging her to reconsider U.S. visa policy vis-a-vis Central and East European countries. Twenty-four other members of Congress also signed the letter, all but four of them Democrats.

Kucinich "looks forward to working with the president on the visa-waiver issue," a spokesman for the congressman said. Kucinich was traveling and could not be reached.

Some of the Republicans left standing after the elections sound optimistic as well. One of them is U.S. Representative John Shimkus (R-IL), a fourth-generation descendant of Lithuanian immigrants and one of the Republicans who signed the letter. "This is not just a European issue. I think [changing the policy] is in the interest of everybody."

Shimkus did sound a note of caution, however: "I think there are going to be some that are opposed on the grounds of immigration or border security."

'Beginning of a process'

The U.S. Embassy in Prague has traditionally been cautious of giving Czechs hope for the abolition of visas. U.S. Ambassador Richard Graber, on the job since September, called Bush's statement "a significant announcement," but added, "It's only the beginning of a process."

The United States requires all VWP countries to have biometric passports, which contain biological data such as a fingerprint and a digital photo.

The Czechs already have a head start in meeting U.S. security requirements. As of Sept. 1, all newly issued passports contain a biometric photo, and, as of May 2008, passports will also contain a biometric fingerprint, according to Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Zuzana Opletalová.

"The Czech Republic will do everything to fulfill the criteria. At the moment, nothing hints that we could have problems doing so," she said.

Currently, 27 countries, mostly in Europe, are part of the VWP. Greece is the only country of the original EU 15 not to have had its visa requirement waived.

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexandr Vondra has stated that Czechs will be able to travel to the United States without a visa within the next two years.

Graber did not want to back that timeline. "Maybe [two years] is a good guess. ... But it's hard to predict. It certainly won't happen in the next couple weeks or even months," he said.