During the UN summit in New York, the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and the President of Bulgaria Rosen Plevneliev had a meeting where they agreed on the visa liberalization process. Currently, Bulgaria and Romania are the only members of the EU which still have visa regulations with Canada. Citizens of all other member-states of the EU do not need a travel visa to visit Canada, still they need to apply for an Electronic Travel Authorization before booking a flight to Canada.

As an active participant of the negotiations on visa liberalization between these countries, the European Commission has recently claimed that it could impose visas on Canadians as well if there is no progress towards visa liberalization. Then, Canada stated that they would not start the process of visa liberalization until the countries meet the criteria, and the European Commission cannot have an influence on it .
The acceleration of the visa liberalization process between the countries was already linked to the planned EU-Canada trade agreement (CETA) as the new step of CETA negotiations has sparked a wave of protests across the Europe.

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