“We have received a positive answer to our proposals about liberalizing the visa treatment of Ukraine by the expanded EU: this is the EU vision of this matter,” Oleksandr Chaly, state secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, told The Day, commenting on the news that the EU Council of Ministers has given Ukraine a list of recommendations which, if met, could give European Union member states grounds to liberalize their visa requirements of Ukraine. This occurred late the week before last in Brussels at the session of EU troikas on justice, internal affairs, migration, and refuge, where Mr. Chaly headed the Ukrainian delegation.
The visa question is especially sensitive because beginning the middle of next year, Ukraine will have a visa-free relationship with none of its western neighbors by force of the conditions the European Union has imposed on membership candidates. In addition (although the EU keeps saying it wishes to further develop partnership with Ukraine), visa requirements from both the Schengen countries (France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, Greece, Italy. Spain, Portugal, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland) and the EU members that stay out of this system become stricter with each passing year. Individual EU member states as well as the union’s governing bodies make it clear they do not even wish to discuss the future possibility of visa-free exchanges. State Secretary Chaly told The Day that interest in cooperation in the fields of justice, internal affairs, illegal migration, and terrorism control is a positive thing because there have not yet been any negative precedents and precisely this field provides a good occasion for discussing the liberalization of visa requirements.
Ukraine took the first step in this direction last March at an EU- Ukraine Council session, handing over a draft agreement on readmission (repatriation of illegal migrants) to EU bodies. Now, Mr. Chaly says, Ukraine expects that as early as in late April experts will begin a concrete discussion of how to draft the text of this agreement.
The importance of this can be very well illustrated by the Polish example: Germany supported granting the Poles the right of a visa-free movement in the Schengen area a week after the agreement on readmission had come into force. Moreover, Poland undertook to return all the illegals who had made their way to the West through its territory.
The signing of a readmission agreement does not in itself entail the automatic easing of visa requirements for Ukrainians, Ukrainian diplomats say. It is good, of course, that Ukraine has showed initiative in this matter, but such issues as readmission, illegal migration control, combating terrorism, and liberalization of visa treatment can only be linked indirectly.
The Day has learned that one of the steps was a proposal that the EU and Ukraine mutually ease the requirements stage by stage. To start with, Ukraine offered, in particular, to allow EU citizens visa- free business trips, to issue visas to EU tourist groups at international airports, and to introduce visa-free entry (up to ten days) into Ukraine for businessmen, academics, athletes, and cultural exchange participants. It was also suggested that the European Union, in its turn, allow visa-free trips for diplomatic passport bearers, issue renewable long-term visas to special- purpose passport bearers and individuals who travel to EU countries for the purposes of business, research, sports, and cultural exchanges, simplify the visa procedure for conducted tourist groups, and increase the number of EU consulates in Ukraine. If these proposals were successfully implemented, the two sides could go still further: to introduce a visa- free treatment of EU citizens traveling to Ukraine and, in reply after bringing the laws into conformity, delimiting the borders and meeting other EU requirements, to discuss the possibility of visa-free treatment of Ukrainian citizens crossing EU borders.
No concrete answers have been received thus far: Ukrainian diplomats say the EU has only sent a letter in reply explaining the regulations and claiming that the problem of traveling with diplomatic and special-purpose passports is within the competence of individual EU member states. This already gives Ukraine some ground to stand on, for up to now only general policies in this field have been discussed.
Why Ukraine was the first to speak of readmission, a difficult and costly thing, is easy to explain, although this still raises some doubts. As one can see with the naked eye that Russia and the EU increasingly lean toward each other, Moscow is by all means trying not to assume responsibility for readmission. Conversely, Kyiv is trying to gain an additional trump and reiterates that Ukraine was the first to do this, so it has every reason to demand a more liberal visa treatment for itself than for Russia and Belarus. It is unclear how this will look in practice. The point is this problem could have been solved years ago, when the approach of the Schengen area to Ukraine’s western borders was nothing but idle talk. The same applies to the problem of effective control over our eastern and northern borders: a few years ago a clear aspiration for this, coupled with practical steps, could have shown our seriousness of intent. The same applies to living standards, also an important argument in the talks.
Moreover, it would be good to remember some more examples. For example, Bulgarian law calls for a one-year-long withdrawal of passport if a citizen of that country breaks the border crossing rules. Or take Romania, which has installed, without too much fanfare, what can be called “exit filters,” trying to hold back those who obviously do not intend to return and have no legal grounds for living abroad. In any case, Ukraine and the EU have begun a dialogue, and Brussels makes it clear that it is prepared to work on this and cooperate, although not to the extent it has done for Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic (this is a thing of the past). Now everything depends on what the Ukrainian government and Verkhovna Rada will do concretely in this context. At any rate, it should be clear that all this is being done for Ukraine, not for EU functionaries.
