Languages

Without human rights, no visa-free travel

The EU`s stress on human rights issues could be a stumbling-stone in the visa facilitation talks with Russia.

Location

In an interview with newspaper Kommersant, new head of the EU Commission Delegation in Moscow, Vygaudas Usackas, makes clear that the human rights issue constitutes a key component in negotiations between the sides.

“Only by respecting human dignity, observing minority rights and citizens’ freedoms, among them political, can we go hand-in-hand towards our common goal”, the Commision representative says. “Human rights is a cross-cutting issue”, he adds.

Usackas underlines that he strongly supports the introduction of a visa-free regime between the EU and Russia, but at the same time admits that the process “can hardly be speeded up”.

The Russian side is clearly at odds with the EU stress of human rights and see it as a possible pitfall in the visa talks, newspaper Kommersant writes.

The EU-Russia visa talks are currently following two tracks, one of visa facilitation and another on the more long-term introduction of a visa-free regime. Human rights are a core point in one of the four negotiation blocks in the latter track.

The negotiators from the Commission are under pressure from both the EU Parliament and several member state parliaments. Strong voices in the European Parliament have already warned against a visa deal with Russia, arguing that the human rights situation in the country first needs to be improved.

Among the critics is Kristiina Ojuland, a Liberal MEP from Estonia, who in a recent comment on the Magnitsky case said that “relaxing visa policy risks undermining the EU’s approach to human rights in Russia unless it goes together with a concerted effort to … ban EU entry to those officials involved in Magnitsky’s death,” EUobserver.com reports.