Whilst citizens of all Member States of the European Union and Schengen associated countries are entitled to use the eVisitor system since 27 October 2008, the European Commission is still assessing whether the eVisitor visa fully satisfies reciprocity requirements. In its "Seventh report on certain third countries' maintenance of visa requirements in breach of the principle of reciprocity" from 2012, the European Commission found that in principle, the eVisitor provides equal treatment of the citizens of all Member States and Schengen associated countries. However, while the average autogrant rate was high (86.36%), the quarterly reports on eVisitor application statistics showed that applications by citizens of some Member States are mainly processed manually. Autogrant rates for Bulgaria and Romania were at just 18% and 23%, as the majority of applications were sent for additional examination. The commission therefore engaged to continue to closely monitor the processing of eVisitor applications. The commission would submit its assessment of whether eVisitor is equivalent to the Schengen visa application process in a separate document in parallel with the assessment of the Final Rule on ESTA. Currently the Schengen Area does not have visa requirements in place for short-term stays of Australian nationals. The United Kingdom and Ireland are exempt from this particular EU policy, but still do not impose any short-term visa requirements on Australians.