London, Europe Brief News – European Union foreign ministers suspended the visa facilitation deal with Moscow, making it difficult for Russians to obtain visas to travel to the bloc.
The bloc, however, shied away from agreeing to the EU-wide visa ban demanded by Ukraine and several other member states.
The EU was too divided to agree at this stage on a blanket ban, and also left unclear what unilateral measures Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Finland, which have land borders with Russia, could take to restrict access to Russian visitors.
These five countries welcomed the suspension of Russia’s visa facilitation deal as a step in the right direction, but four of them stressed that more needed to be done to “drastically” limit the numbers of visas issued and Russians travelling to the bloc since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
“Until such measures are in place on the EU level, we … will consider introducing on the national level temporary measures of visa ban, or restricting border crossing for Russian citizens holding EU visas, in order to address imminent public security issues,” Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland said in a joint statement.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Moscow would not let the move stand “without consequences”, according to the RIA news agency.
“If Brussels decides to shoot themselves in the foot once again, this is their choice,” he said.
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said the EU’s executive Commission would indeed look at ways to go further, including what can be done with what Lipavsky said were about 12 million Schengen visas already issued for Russians – referring to the 26-country zone of open borders.
