Russian border guards propose lifting visas for foreigners

- As statistics of the past three of four years show, there is a significant decrease in the number of EU residents entering Russia, said First Deputy Commander of the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) Border Guard Service Colonel General Vyacheslav Dorokhin.

Dorokhin said that it is difficult to explain why less tourists are coming Russia, but that he believes that scrapping visas will help increase the number of those wishing to visit the country.

Bureaucracy that accompanies the visa application process in Russia has long been an issue of discontent for foreigners trying to visit the country.

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Visa restrictions cannot be considered a panacea from the terrorist threat as visa procedures do not allow the authorities to learn the real motivations of a person entering a country, Dorokhin said according to RIA Novosti:

- We do not see the lifting of visas as a threat to Russia’s security, he said, and added that lifting visas will not mean that border control will be any slacker.

Russia has visa-free travel agreements with almost all former Soviet republics and with more than 20 other countries.

The Russian authorities have long been trying to persuade Europe to drop visas for Russian citizens. Progress was made on the visa issue in the EU-Russia Summit in December last year. After major pressure from Russia, the EU side agreed to initiate a progress plan, which eventually will lead to the introduction of a visa-free regime between the sides.

Several key EU leaders at the same time underline that the visa-free regime will not be introduced in the near future, that it is only a “long-term objective”. Other EU country representatives, among them Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, maintain that the visa regime could be abolished already in few years.

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