Russia and EU agree to pursue visa-free travel

 

Russian and European diplomats have agreed on joint action steps leading to a visa-free travel agreement.

After spending much of the past year persuading the European Union to embark on a visa-waiver program with Russia, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev seems to finally have gotten his way. Russian and European diplomats have agreed on joint action steps leading to visa-free travel. Once the checklist is approved and completed, the parties expect to be ready to sign a visa-waiver agreement.

EU negotiator Stefano Manservizi, the European Commission’s Director of Internal Affairs, said he felt satisfied with the progress, because the parties had found "a lot in common."

The document in question is called the List of Joint Steps. Vladimir Voronkov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department of European Cooperation, said that the list still needed fine-tuning "to ensure it was acceptable to both the Russian Federation and the European Union."

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