EU complicates travel rules for Russians but rejects visa ban

PRAGUE (Reuters) – European Union foreign ministers decided on Wednesday to make it more expensive and longer for Russians to obtain visas to travel to the bloc, but stopped short of agreeing to an EU-wide visa ban imposed by Ukraine and several member states. called for.

The EU was too divided at this point to agree to a blanket ban, nor did it spell out what unilateral measures Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Finland, which have land borders with Russia, could take to restrict access to Russian visitors.

These five countries welcomed the suspension of the Russian visa facilitation deal as a step in the right direction, but four of them stressed that “significantly” more needs to be done to reduce the number of visas issued and travel to the bloc since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. in February.

“Until such measures are in place at the EU level, we … will consider introducing temporary measures at the national level to ban visas, or restrict border crossings for Russian citizens holding EU visas, in order to address imminent public security issues,” she said. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland in a joint statement.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying that Moscow would not let the move stand “without consequences.”

“If Brussels decides to shoot them in the foot again, that’s their choice,” he said.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lebavsky said the EU’s executive committee would already be looking at ways forward, including what could be done with what Lebavsky said about 12 million Schengen visas had already been issued to Russians – a reference to the 26-nation open border area.

The head of EU foreign policy, Josep Borrell, has argued that suspending the visa facilitation deal would already have a real impact.

“This will significantly reduce the number of new visas issued by EU member states. It will be more difficult and it will take longer,” he told a news conference at the conclusion of a two-day meeting of EU foreign ministers. Prague.

Borrell said the significant increase in border crossings from Russia to neighboring countries since mid-July made it necessary to suspend the visa facilitation agreement.

“security risk”

“This has become a security threat to these neighboring countries,” he added. “In addition, we saw many Russians traveling for entertainment and shopping as if Ukraine wasn’t raging at war.”

More than a million Russian citizens have entered the bloc via land border crossing points since the start of the Ukrainian invasion, most of them via Finland and Estonia, the bloc’s border agency Frontex said. Read more

Ukraine has repeatedly said that Russian citizens must pay for the invasion, which, according to the United Nations, killed thousands of civilians and brought cities to the ground.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, earlier on Wednesday reiterated calls for a visa ban from the European Union, saying it would be an “appropriate response to Russia’s aggressive genocidal war in the heart of Europe with the support of the overwhelming majority of Russian citizens”. Read more

But France and Germany differed.

“We caution against far-reaching restrictions on our visa policy, in order to prevent feeding the Russian narrative and provoke an unintended detour around the effects of the flag and/or alienate future generations,” they said in a joint note.

Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold, Jason Hofitt, Bart Meijer, and Gabriela Bazinska; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by John Chalmers, Nick McPhee and Mark Porter

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