Visa-free traveling to the test
The EU and Russia might agree to make Kaliningrad Oblast a test region on visa-free traveling.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will next week bring a delegation of at least ten cabinet ministers to Brussels for talks with the EU Commission. Visa-free traveling will be on the agenda, along with issues like Russian WTO membership, the Partnership for Modernization, as well as the ongoing negotiations on a new EU-Russia Partnership Agreement, diplomats confirm to journalists.
Good news could be in the pipeline for the people of Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave surrounded by EU member states Poland and Lithuania. According to newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the region could become a test region for visa-free traveling with the EU. The successful introduction of a visa-free regime for Kaliningrad would eventually strengthen the chances for the introduction of such a regime also with the rest of Russia, the newspaper argues.
However, if Kaliningrad is to be granted visa-free traveling, the EU will have to change its Schengen regulations. The Schengen Treaty opens up for the establishment of local zones of visa-free border traffic only in a 30 km range from the border. Such zones today exist only on the Slovak-Ukrainian, Hungarian-Ukrainian, Polish-Ukrainian and Romanian-Moldovan border.
As reported by BarentsObserver, Russia’s first agreement on local border traffic was signed in November 2010. The agreement will eventually open up for local visa-free traveling in the border areas between Russia and Norway.
Read also: Putin wants more local visa-free zones
Both Poland and Russia have long called for the inclusion of Kaliningrad in a similar agreement on local border traffic. However, both parts agree that the 30 km principle will be insufficient and have pushed on the EU Commission to make an exception which will allow for the inclusion of the whole region into the agreement.
A compromise on the issue could possibly be found in the upcoming meetings in Brussels. The meeting between the Russian government representatives and the EU Commission will be held on 24 February. Similar meetings were last held in 2009 and before that in 2005, 2004 and 1999.
Read also:Visa-free border travel: First Poland – then Norway?
As previously reported, 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.
Read also: visa-free traveling by 2018?
