EU ready to suspend visa deal with Russia: report

EU member states are preparing to suspend a 2007 visa facilitation agreement with: Russia about the war in Ukraine, a British daily reported on Sunday.



EU foreign ministers will give political support to the suspension at a two-day informal meeting in Prague on Tuesday and Wednesday. Financial times said, citing three officials involved in the talks.

The measure extends the partial suspension imposed on Russian government officials and business leaders in February to include civilian Russian applicants for EU visas, the Financial Times reported, the dpa news agency said.

Suspensions make the EU visa process more complicated, expensive and bureaucratic, and also increase the waiting time for approval, he said. European Commission guidelines.

Further measures to restrict EU travel for Russian nationals, such as limiting the number of EU visas to be issued or banning travel entirely, have not been decided, the report said, urging officials who took part in the negotiations. named.

The Czech Republic, Finland and Estonia, after imposing their own visa restrictions, have pushed for an EU-wide decision and have called for a total ban on Russian nationals from traveling to the bloc.

However, Germany and the commission have urged caution against banning tourist visas or banning Russian nationals from traveling to the bloc entirely. Critics have also expressed humanitarian concerns.

The European Union Russia has already imposed several rounds of political and economic sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine in February, including a ban on Russian airlines from EU airspace.

The idea of ​​restricting Russian tourists to the EU came about recently after countries witnessed the arrival of Russians for the summer holidays through neighboring EU countries.

A visa issued by a country gives access to all 26 members of the Schengen passport-free zone.

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