Foreign ministers are expected to agree on limiting Russian visa facilitation at the EU level.
15:50•Updated 16:44
The foreign ministers of the European Union will discuss visa restrictions for Russians this week.
On the agenda are both the restriction of Russian visa facilitation and the cancellation of existing travel rights at the EU level.
The EU presidency, the Czech Republic, has already said before that it plans to raise the visa issue at the meeting starting at the end of August.
Already in February, the EU decided to end visa facilitation for Russian businessmen and civil servants. Now they want to extend the visa restrictions to other visas as well.
Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic Jan Lipavsky said (you switch to another service) earlier in August that ending the issuance of visas to Russians would be an effective sanction against Russia.
However, the EU countries do not agree on whether the total number of visas granted to Russians should be limited or whether new visas should be stopped.
There is also the question of whether the citizens of Belarus, Russia’s ally, should be banned from traveling to Europe.
If the European Union were to agree on EU-wide visa restrictions, it would become considerably more difficult for Russians to travel to European countries.
Some EU countries have begun to restrict visas for Russians
Among other things, Estonia has demanded a strict visa policy for Russia, because the country is at war in Ukraine.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia Urmas Reinsalu said in August that Estonia would propose to the EU Commission that the Schengen visas already granted to Russians be canceled in the EU.
– How can it be that in the middle of a genocidal war, hundreds of thousands of Russians get to see the Louvre and the Brandenburg Gate? Reinsalu commented in Helsinki.
The Finnish government decided in August that the number of Russian tourist visas will be significantly reduced from the current one.
Finland also supports ending the visa facilitation agreement with Russia.
Among the EU countries, for example, the Czech Republic and Poland have also stopped issuing tourist visas to Russians. Latvia and Lithuania currently do not issue visas to Russians except in exceptional cases.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi has called on states to deny visas to Russian citizens.
Among EU countries, for example, Germany opposes visa restrictions for Russians.