The bloc cannot compel members to deny entry to tourists from specific countries, its top migration official has said<\/p>\n
The EU cannot force all of its member states to stop issuing visas to Russian citizens, European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner said on Sunday.
\nSpeaking at a press conference alongside Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, the bloc migration czar was asked about forthcoming\u00a0\u201cguidelines\u201d\u00a0from Brussels to its member states\u00a0calling for\u00a0a total ban on category-C visas for Russian tourists.
\n\u201cVisa is the competence of the member states, so there is no possibility for the EU to ever have a complete ban on that,\u201d\u00a0Brunner acknowledged.
\n\u201cWe see some member states where the numbers are going up a bit, and that worries us,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
EU state resumes accepting tourist visa applications from Russians<\/p>\n
Slovakia, along with Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland, halted tourist visas for Russians in 2022. Slovakia resumed issuing Schengen visas earlier this year, after previously restricting them to Russians with family ties, work needs, or diplomatic status.\u00a0
\nCurrent EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, then Estonia\u2019s foreign minister, urged a bloc-wide ban that year, writing on X, \u201cStop issuing tourist visas to Russians. Visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right.\u201d\u00a0
\nAccording to the European Commission, Russian nationals filed more than 606,000 Schengen visa applications in 2024, up from around 520,000 in 2023, around 7.5% of which were rejected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The bloc cannot compel members to deny entry to tourists from specific countries, its top migration official has said The EU cannot force all of its member states to stop…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-politics","category-society"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t