Visa facilitation agreement with Belarus ready for signing


For two days Minsk has hosted meetings of the delegation of the European External Action Service (EEAS), the European Commission on the Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement (DG NEAR) and Trade (DG Trade).

Texts of agreements on visa facilitation and readmission between Belarus and the European Union are ready for initialing and signing, said at a briefing on December 9 in Minsk Gunnar Wiegand, Director of the Department for Russia, Eastern Partnership and Central Asia from the Regional Cooperation and OSCE European External Action Service.

According to him, the only obstacle in the transition to a simplified visa regime are the Belarus diplomatic passports (valid along with the ordinary passports of Belarus citizens) that do not meet safety standards.

Belarus and the EU have been working on the agreement to ease the visa regime for several years.

On May 22, 2015 after the Eastern Partnership summit in Riga, Foreign Minister of Belarus Uladzimir Makey told reporters that the agreement on visa facilitation and readmission agreements were not initialed at the forum through no fault of Belarus.

“We worked with the European Union on the issue of agreements, he said. It was the initiative of our President. There have been several consultations. We have successfully moved on the conclusion of these agreements. And I can say that in fact we are close to the final stage.”

According to the Belarusian head of the MFA, at the request of the European partners, the Belarusian side even started the procedure of internal harmonization of the documents to see how they correspond to the national interests.

“But at some point, our partners found some technical details that did not allow us to enter the initialling phase of the agreements at the summit, said Makey. That is why we continue to work on them, we agreed that experts will meet further. Believe me, this is absolutely not our fault.”

The agreement on visa facilitation with Belarus provides:

  • Simplification of the procedure for obtaining visas;
  • The decreasing of consular fees from €60 to €35;
  • Widening the circle of persons who may qualify for free visas;
  • Issuance of bigger number of multiple-entry visas.

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”59319″ img_size=”large”][vc_column_text]Note that on December 7-9 in the Belarusian capital also worked a delegation of European officials. The purpose of their visit was the preparation of the annual action programs of the European Union for Belarus, as well as a special program of cooperation with the financial support of the EU for 2016.

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