Like us wrote earlier, the Russians will continue to issue visas to the EU, but the process of registration will become longer and more expensive. The EU visa facilitation agreement with Russia is on hold, at least for the duration of the war.
Russia has lost the trust of EU members
Like the EU foreign ministers during the informal discussions in Prague, members of the European Commission agree that Russian tourists should not be left with privileged access to the Schengen area. “European visa policy is a vote of confidence, which Russia completely undermined with its war against Ukraine”, - said the Vice-President of the European Commission Margaritis Schinas.
Brussels will not mind if the EU member states consider the applications of Russians for a visa for a very long time and carefully, including by adding extra time.
Traveling around Europe will be more difficult for Russians
In any case, visa processing fee will increase from 35 euros to 80 euros. At the same time, the standard the duration of consideration of the application will increase from 10 to 15 days with a possible extension up to 45 days.
From now on, more documents will also be required to obtain a visa. Brussels believes that this is not only a disguised punitive measure, but also a means of preventing threats to European security. Exceptions are made for family members of European citizens, journalists, dissidents, representatives of non-governmental public organizations and some other categories of citizens of the Russian Federation.
Entry from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine
The European Commission followed the EU foreign ministers with another proposal. We are talking about the refusal to recognize Russian passports issued in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. This measure, already introduced unilaterally by a number of European countries, will be applied in a general manner for all 27 EU member states.
Publication Date: 26.09.2022
