Latvian Minister of Internal Affairs: EU should not hesitate to allow visa-free travel for Ukrainians, Georgians
The European Union should not delay the decision to cancel visa regimes for Georgia and Ukraine, as stated by the Minister of Internal Affairs of Latvia, Rihards Kozlovskis, Delfi reported.
According to an Advisor to the Minister, Daiga Holma, at a meeting concerning the European Commission's proposal to abolish visa regimes for citizens of Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey and Kosovo, Kozlovskis supported abolishing visas for citizens of these states.
He particularly singled out Georgia and Ukraine, which have complied with all the previously set conditions.
"We should be consistent in our actions and decisions, because we are talking about the implementation of the criteria that we ourselves have put forward," Kozlovskis stated.
The European Commission, despite skeptical statements made by some EU member states, hopes that Ukrainian citizens will soon be able to travel to Europe without visas.
According to previous reports of Evropeyskaya Pravda, some EU member states want to coordinate the resolution of the Ukrainian visa-free regime situation with other, more global issues - in particular, with the total suspension of visa-free regimes.
In an interview with Evropeyskaya Pravda, Ukraine's Ambassador to the EU has confirmed that the delay of the decision on visa-free travel for Ukrainian citizens is being discussed in Brussels.
On Friday evening, representatives from several member states said that they were against the introduction of visa-free regimes. In particular, the Minister of Internal Affairs of France said that visa-free travel for Ukraine cannot be issued in the coming months.