Polish authorities are considering a ban on issuing visas to Russians
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Poland is working on a concept that will allow Russian citizens to be denied visas, the interview PAP Deputy Foreign Minister Piotr Wawrzyk. The diplomat added that decisions on this issue could be announced in the coming weeks.
Piotr Wawrzyk also said that Poland is in favor of extending the EU sanctions, especially regarding the suspension of the visa facilitation agreement for Russian citizens. At the same time, he acknowledged that not all EU countries agree with this. “It is opposed by major member countries, including Germany, France and the Netherlands,” Wawrzyk said.
He added that Polish diplomacy has been negotiating this topic for several weeks with some member states, and noted that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia also have a similar view on these issues.
On August 10, the official representative of the German government, Steffen Hebestreit, during a briefing, said that the EU began discussing the initiative of a number of countries of the union to ban the issuance of visas to Russian citizens. The next day, the Estonian authorities were the first in the EU to decide to ban Russians with Schengen visas issued by the republic from entering the country. After that, the possibility of introducing restrictions was discussed in Finland, the Czech Republic and Denmark.
On August 11, the Saeima of Latvia recognized Russia as a sponsor of terrorism. The head of the Latvian Foreign Ministry, Edgars Rinkevics, said that residents of Latvia who have received Russian citizenship will have to leave the country, since they will no longer be issued a residence permit. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and the Baltic countries suspended the issuance of tourist visas by August 11, while Slovenia imposed restrictions.
On August 13, it became known that the Finnish authorities are discussing introduction of a new mechanism for issuing tourist visas to Russians, which will help slow down this process. It is assumed that only one day can be available for this in a week.
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