Russians to face higher fees, stricter rules for EU visas

Bloomberg

The European Union proposed to make it more expensive and harder for Russian tourists to travel to the bloc, in a move that will likely increase tensions between Moscow and Brussels.
“Russian citizens should not have easy access to the EU,” Commissioner Ylva Johansson, in charge of home affairs, told reporters Tuesday. “At the moment, there is no basis for trust, no basis for a privileged relation between EU and Russia.”
The bloc’s foreign ministers gave their political backing in Prague on Aug. 31 to suspending a 2007 deal that facilitated the issuing of visas to Russians.
The ministers had met amid divisions on banning Russian tourists in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the Baltic countries and Poland threatening unilateral action if the EU failed to agree to ban Russian tourists.
Baltic and Nordic ministers will meet Wednesday in Lithuania where they are expected to discuss a possible agreement among some of Russia’s neighbors to restrict the entry of Russian visa holders at land crossings. “In the coming week or 10 days, you will hear from us” on the measures, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics told Bloomberg on Friday.
“We will soon follow up with additional guidelines to ensure enhanced scrutiny on visa applications and border crossings by Russian citizens, without cutting ourselves from Russian dissidents and civil society,” Johansson said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month that if the EU went ahead with a ban on tourist visas for Russians, “this couldn’t be left without a response” by Russia, without elaborating on possible retaliatory moves.
Around one million Russian citizens have legally entered the EU since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, with roughly two-thirds entering through the borders of Estonia or Finland, according to the EU’s border agency Frontex. Once they cross into the EU with a Schengen visa, they are free to travel around the border-free zone within Europe.