EU will suspend agreement with russia on simplified visa regime — Hungary’s Foreign Ministry

This decision was announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Peter Szijjarto, at an online briefing on Facebook, Reuters cites.

However, a unanimous decision on banning tourist visas for russians could not be reached.

Hungary's head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that several EU member states opposed the general ban on issuing visas to russian citizens during the meeting of EU ministers in Prague. Hungary was among these countries.

Despite this, with the support of the majority, the European Union will suspend the agreement with the russian federation, which eases the issuance of visas.

So far, Szijjarto has not clarified whether Hungary supports this decision.

Earlier, EU foreign affairs and security chief Josep Borrell said an entry ban for all Russians was "not a very good idea," pointing out that many russian citizens want to leave the country.

But the leaders of the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic, etc., favor a complete ban. We should also note that we are talking only about tourist visas.

In the end, the Czech Republic, which currently presides over the EU Council, proposed to member states to make it more difficult to issue visas to russians as a compromise solution.

This step involves an increase in the visa fee from 35 to 80 euros and an increase in the time for processing visa applications and the number of documents required for this.

As Rubryka reported, the eastern EU countries, which are neighbors of russia, threaten to take "national measures" to reduce the number of russian citizens entering their countries.