The subject has been far from unanimous for several weeks.
Should we prohibit European tourists from Russia because of the war in Ukraine, limit passages, leave free movement?
This question will be at the center of the debates from Tuesday in Prague by EU foreign ministers.
Recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Westerners to close their borders to Russians who must “live in their own world until they change their philosophy”.
“The Russians massively support the war, applaud the missile strikes on Ukrainian cities and the murders of Ukrainians.
So let Russian tourists enjoy Russia,” added its head of diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba.
This position is supported by several countries including the Baltic States, Poland and even Finland.
This group wants a common position of the 27 on this issue, which would be unprecedented.
Three million short-stay visa applications
In the meantime, Finland, which processes some 1,000 visa applications per day, has decided to reduce the number of visas issued to Russian tourists to 10% of this volume from September 1.
Since the closure of European airspace in response to the war, more and more Russians are traveling to this border country to transit to other European states with short-stay Schengen visas (90 days per period). 180 days).
For Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, “it is not fair that Russian citizens can enter Europe, the Schengen area, do tourism while Russia kills people in Ukraine”.
The 26 countries of the Schengen area (22 EU states, plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein) received three million short-stay visa applications in 2021, all categories combined (tourism, studies, business trips …), the Russians being the most numerous (536,000).
Estonia deplores not being able to prohibit entry to its territory "to people with a visa from another country in the Schengen area", considering that "visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right" .
“There can be no question of tourism as usual for Russian citizens,” supported Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.
Protection of dissidents, journalists and their families
Following the example of Prague, the Baltic countries and Poland also tightened after the start of the offensive their visa regime for Russians to varying degrees (total stop or for tourists only), with exceptions (studies, family reasons, humanitarian reasons, opposition media…).
Conversely, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz estimated that a limitation of tourist visas would penalize “all people who flee Russia because they disagree with the Russian regime”.
The head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, considered "that banning all Russians from entering Europe is not a good idea".
As for the European Commission, it insists on the need to protect dissidents, journalists and families for humanitarian reasons, recalling that requests must be examined on a case-by-case basis.
Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson will visit Latvia and Finland on 8-9 September.
