“Remonstrance procedure discontinued worldwide as of July 1, 2025.” For many in Germany, this is a footnote, because with a German passport, you are among the most privileged people in the world. For international organizations with partners in the Global South, this news was not as positive as the Federal Foreign Office (AA) tried to portray it in its press release.
Until now, a remonstration procedure was the legal option for visa applicants to initiate a reassessment in the event of a rejection. In most cases, supplementary documents could be submitted for the reassessment. In the context of its South-North voluntary services, NM has written statements in several cases in recent years. In many cases, for example, the embassy's frequent assumption that a young person was unwilling to return home could be mitigated by the long-standing partnership between the churches.
In its information on the abolition, the AA states that a two-year pilot project had shown that without remonstration, the visa departments of the participating German embassies were able to 1. process more visa applications (national visas and Schengen visas) and 2. shorten the waiting time for an appointment at the embassy, so that the abolition was in everyone's interest.
Neither Ghana nor Togo were part of the pilot project, but in Ghana, the remonstration was already terminated in January 2024. There are studies on this by the British research group LAGO Collective. According to these studies, a disproportionately high number of visa refusals were recorded across the entire African continent in 2024. Ghana ranks fifth among African countries with the highest rejection rates (45 % of all Schengen applications were rejected. This rate does not refer to Germany alone, but to 29 European countries). LAGO Collective concludes that in Ghana alone, approximately € 60 million was spent on rejected visas. A Schengen visa for short stays in Europe (up to 90 days) costs € 90. The rejection of an application is therefore not only a travel restriction, but also a considerable financial loss – for the individual, but also a significant loss of purchasing power when added up.
There is also no sign of improvement for national visas in Germany, which are applied for due to the longer stay of 12 months for South-North voluntary services. Since 2024, the website of the German Embassy in Lomé, Togo, has stated that the waiting time is more than 12 months. According to the NM’s experience, the processing time until the passport is returned can take another two months after an interview at the embassy took place. Further telephone interviews by staff members can follow at any time. The embassy does not respond to inquiries about the current status or information about processing times.
Particularly worthy of criticism in the termination of the remonstration is therefore the statement by the Foreign Office that “all applicants would of course (...) have the opportunity to submit a new application to the embassy at any time in the event of rejection.” If the first online booking of an appointment at the embassy, as required in Ghana, does not work, how is it supposed to work the second time around? If, as in Togo, you have to wait at least a year to be interviewed, this means that, in the worst case, you have to wait another year.
Presenting the abolition of the remonstration as a success, on the grounds that it frees up more capacity for applications and speeds up the entire visa process, seems completely inconsistent with practical experience.
