Broad EU support to ease visa regime for Russians
None of European Union’s 27 member states have voiced opposition to last week’s initiative by the Spanish Foreign Minister to ease visa requirements for Russian citizens.
As BarentsObserver reported last week, Russia and EU agreed that the final goal is visa-free travel. In the mean-time, however, the Spanish initiative to ease the EU visa regime for Russian citizens has enough political support among European leaders to continue even after Spain’s EU presidency ends this summer, The Moscow Times quotes EU officials saying.
According to Fernando Valenzuela, head of the European Commission in Moscow, the visa regime between the Russia and EU can be simplified as early as the coming first half-year, reports Russia-InfoCentre.
The news-site writes that there are some questions and technical difficulties in deciding on the visa-free travel issue, all of them are dealing with security. First of all, the signing of the readmission is in question. It means that the countries make pledges not to let the illegal migrants come through their territories.
Read also: Easier border crossing a priority
Spain’s Ambassador in Moscow Juan Antonio Pujol told reporters Wednesday that “We want a large European Russian space extremely friendly to citizens.”
BarentsObserver has earlier quoted Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying “The introduction of visa-free travel between Russia and the EU would be a brilliant project.”
