German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Tuesday proposed to suspend the European Union's visa facilitation agreement with Russia, along with the issuance of multi-year visas to Russians.
"My suggestion would be... to suspend the visa facilitation agreement so as not to issue multi-year visas anymore, in order to enable the countries that are particularly affected by this issue to check exactly for what purposes this visa will be issued," Baerbock told reporters.
The EUobserver online newspaper reported, citing top European diplomats and sources, that the bloc is considering various ideas about changing the procedure for issuing visas to Russians .
The visa issue is expected to be discussed during an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Prague on Tuesday and Wednesday.
One EU diplomat said that the talks in Prague will not reach any definite decision on visas, but a "political green light for [technical] work to begin" can be expected.
"There are plenty of ideas floating around ... It may be that only certain categories of Russians will be covered [by the new costs and administrative burden] in the end," the diplomat said, adding that "in future there could be a limited number of Russian tourist visas issued by the EU each year."
Meanwhile, there is pressure to exclude young Russian people from any visa restrictions, another EU source told the newspaper.
"There's some kind of obsession in EU decision-making circles about Russian youth -- under 25s," the source saaid.
A number of Western countries called for a ban on the issuance of visas to Russian citizens, but there is no single position on the issue.
The EU commission said that EU countries cannot completely stop issuing Schengen visas to Russian citizens, adding that member states could decide for themselves on the issuance of short-term Schengen visas and consider each application on an individual basis. (ANI/Sputnik)
( With inputs from ANI )
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