Ukraine to introduce visas for EU subjects - Viktor Baloha

Earlier, V. Baloha was in favor of back-tracking on the agreement with EU, saying it was a one-way street. He said several scores of millions of euros from EU visitors would hardly be a compensation for the hardships encountered by Ukrainians wishing to travel to Europe.

Ukrainians have to reassess the effectiveness of simplified visa-granting procedures. Right now, the Ukrainian authorities, acting on orders from the president, are preparing proposals. One of them is to impose visas for travelers from EU, issued at cross-border checkpoints. In doing so, we are not backtracking on our course to Europe, we are defending our interests, V. Baloha continued. Kyiv aims to spur European countries to take real, not ephemeral, steps toward Ukraine, he added.

He reminded that the visa-free travel for EU and other European countries’ subjects was introduced by Yushchenko. Since then, the number of visitors from the EU alone has doubled.

However, more than liberal border-crossing procedures imposed by Ukraine didn’t cause an adequate response from Europe. Following the expansion of the Schengen zone, it became extremely difficult for Ukrainians to travel to Europe, notably to the neighboring countries with which Ukraine had a soft border-crossing regime. As a result, the number of Ukrainian traveling to Europe has decreased two-fold.

A comprehensive analysis of the agreement on simplified travel with EU shows that it does not ensure free travel of Ukrainian in Europe. In particular, it is more difficult to obtain a visa to an “old” Schengen country than to a “new” one, due to additional procedures and red-tape. Every fourth Ukrainian applying for a visa to an “old” Schengen country has to pay additional money to various go-betweens. This brings total expenses for obtaining a visa to almost double of the Euro 35 fixed by the agreement. Multiple visas are typically issued for 1-3 months, with only every 10^{th visa for 6 months and longer. Deadlines for visa consideration by consular officials and the number of needed forms have not been reduced.}

“Almost every Ukrainian eager to travel to Europe on business or as a tourist has a sad story to tell. This is very humiliating and runs counter to the agreement reached between Kyiv and Brussels. The Ukrainian foreign office has repeatedly drawn attention of EU diplomats to considerable inconveniences suffered by Ukrainians seeking EU visas. However, no significant improvements have been made, as has been evidenced by the Czech attitude, V. Baloha summed up.