“There can be no talk of tourism, as in normal times, for Russian citizens,” Jan Lipavskyi, the head of the Foreign Ministry of the Czech Republic, which presides over the EU Council, made another statement last Friday. The official got a chance to speed up the ban on entry to the EU for Russian tourists: on August 31, representatives of the European Union countries will gather together to discuss the refusal to issue Schengen visas to citizens of the Russian Federation. This was reported by “Interfax” concerning the statement of the Czech politician.
“A complete ban on visas for Russians by all EU member states could become another very effective sanction against Russia,” the BFMTV channel quoted Lipavskyi as saying. It was clarified that the office of a country “unfriendly” to the Russian Federation intends to study the opinion of his European colleagues on this issue during the informal meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council “Hymnich” on August 31 in Prague. According to Lypavskyi, during the war in Ukraine “there can be no talk of tourism, as in the past, for Russian citizens.”
However, some EU states do not agree with this measure, the publication reminded, and its adoption requires a unanimous decision of all 27 EU member states. According to the TV channel, the Czech minister has not yet convinced the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, who heads the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense of the EU countries, of the need for such a measure. The imposition of sanctions is one of his prerogatives.
Earlier it was reported that Finland and Estonia have aggravated the situation by calling to limit the entry of Russians into the EU to the point of banning them from issuing tourist visas. The European Commission (EC) has refrained from directly commenting on these calls. “The responsibility for issuing or refusing rests with the member states, which make decisions individually. And only they can limit the issuance of visas to Russian citizens,” EC representative Anita Hipper said at a briefing in Brussels last Thursday.
According to her, EU countries, by EC recommendations, must take into account each request for a visa and can refuse a request for a visa if they decide that there is a threat to public health, internal security, or international relations.
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However, answering the question about the possibility of stopping the issuance of tourist visas to Russians in EU countries, the representative of the EC pointed out that in any case it is important that the member states fulfill their international obligations. “There will always be categories of persons to whom a visa will be issued. We mean humanitarian cases, family members, journalists and dissidents,” explained Hipper.
DIP previously wrote that “Russian tourists in Finland began to complain that their cars were being pelted with eggs.”