The European Commission said on Friday that Ukraine and Georgia meet all benchmarks for getting visa-free travel to the European Union’s Schengen zone, possibly allowing Ukrainian and Georgian citizens to travel to the EU without visas as soon as 2016.
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No 539/2001 of March 15, 2001 lists the Non-EU Member Countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement. Georgian Prime Minister’s special envoy for relations with Russia Zurab Abashidze has said that Tbilisi “will push ahead with efforts to overcome the stalemate in relations with Russia”.
However, Brussels chose to wait until a meeting held on December 16 in Brussels between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, EU Council President Donald Tusk, and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to iron out the last remaining differences.
The EU-Ukraine Visa Dialogue has been an important and effective tool for advancing far-reaching and hard reforms in the Justice and Home Affairs area and beyond, impacting on areas such as the rule of law and justice reform.
The enhanced mobility of citizens in a secure and well-managed environment is one of the core objectives of the Eastern Partnership.
Negotiations about visa liberalization began in June, 2012.
The report says Georgia has fulfilled all the benchmarks required by the action plan for visa liberalization.
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The European Commission said that since its previous report on implementation of the VLAP in May 2015, Georgia has made the necessary progress and “the legislative and policy framework, the institutional and organisational principles, and the implementation of procedures throughout the four blocks comply with European and global standards”. The EU set out an action plan for Georgia’s visa liberalization process in February, 2013.
