Less than one million citizens of the Russian Federation have valid Schengen visas and they will not be affected by the cancellation of the EU visa facilitation agreement with Russia.
The European Commission reported that as of September 1, 963,189 Russian citizens had valid Schengen visas, and not 12 million, as previously stated. This is what the official representative of the European Commission for internal affairs, Anitta Hipper, said, Politico reports.
It was noted that the implementation process of the recent decision to suspend the 2007 agreement is likely to take several weeks. The EU must first make a formal decision – the meeting of foreign ministers is informal – and the European Commission will publish guidelines clarifying who can be expelled.
At the same time, it is reported that the suspension of the visa facilitation agreement with Russia will not affect existing visas.
Russian hardliners insist that last week’s political decision is just the first step in that process.
“This is just a starting point. We are looking for other ways to restrict travel from Russia, and of course, individual countries can introduce their own measures,” said an EU official.
The publication also cited the words of Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, who said he would raise this issue in talks with EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell at a meeting on Monday in Brussels.
“Visas should be stopped or suspended,” Shmyhal said. “Instead of tourists or students going to Europe to enjoy life or study, they should stay in their country and tell their neighbors, their relatives, their environment how it really is Europe sees Russia. This should be a cold shower for the whole Russian society – to give it a chance to understand the consequences of what they are doing in Ukraine.”
It is reported that following the announcement on August 31 of the decision to abolish the simplified EU visa regime for Russians, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have announced plans at the national level to ban the issuance of visas to Russians and restrict entry to Russians. citizens with an EU visa. To do this, they intend to create a single solution.
It will be remembered that on August 31, the Foreign Ministers of EU countries agreed to cancel the simplified procedure for issuing visas to Russians. At the same time, the EU said that having a visa for Russians does not guarantee entry into the EU.
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Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.