EU suspends existing visa agreement with Russia

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, announced after a meeting of EU member state foreign ministers that the EU is completely suspending its existing visa facilitation agreement with Russia. The EU had already suspended its validity for Russian businessmen, government officials and diplomats at the end of February, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This new decision is another sanction measure in response to the invasion, and follows a two-day meeting of the EU Council for Foreign Affairs, which ended on Wednesday in Prague. As a result, Russian citizens will now have to wait longer and pay more for visas to enter the EU. Borrell expects that this will significantly limit the issuance of visas by EU states. The ministers also discussed proposals for a complete ban on issuing visas to Russians, but there is no consensus on this issue among the EU member countries. The eastern and northern member states are mainly in favor of the ban. Germany and France are against it, according to whom the step would be counterproductive, preventing, for example, Russian dissidents from traveling to the West. The EU and Russia concluded the current agreement on the mutual facilitation of visa issuance in 2007.