“A true partnership between Russia and the European Union is impossible as long as barriers which obstruct human and economic contacts persist, and first of all the visa regime”, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin writes in his article published in the Moskovskie Novosti this week.
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The article, which outlines the foreign policy priorities of the candidate for president, includes also a stress on the visa issue. “The abolishment of the visa regime would be a powerful impulse for the real integration of Russia and the EU, it would expand cultural and business relations, especially between small and medium-sized businesses,” the premier underlines.
The article also proposes to establish a “Union of Europe”, which would stretch “from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific” and includes a joint economic and human space. Russia and the EU should work for the development of joint mechanisms for economic integration and the formation of a free economic zone, Putin argues.
He also stresses that Russia is an “organic part of Big Europe and the European civilization”, and that Russians themselves feel European.
