The Youth branch
of YABLOKO calls to introduce a visa-free regime between Russia
and EU during its action by EU representation in Moscow
Press Release
April 5, 2010
A TV item by Vesti-Moscow
An action by the Youth branch of the YABLOKO party “To Europe
without Visas” took place by EU representation in Moscow today,
on the day on coming into force of the Visa Code of the EU.
Young YABLOKO’s activists were holding flags of Russia and
the European Union and were chanting slogans “Russia is a
part of Europe!”, “To Europe without visas!” and “No wasting
time in queues by the consulate departments!”
“A visa-free entrance of the Russian citizens to Europe conditions
Russia’s becoming an integral part of Europe,” Maxim Kruglov,
one of the leader of the Youth YABLOKO said. “Young people
would like to get education in Europe, to travel there and
to see how Europeans live,” he added.
YABLOKO’s leader Sergei Mitrokhin also came to the
Embassy to support the young activists. Mitrokhin said that
the initiative of elimination of visa barriers between Russia
and EU belongs to YABLOKO. For the first time this idea was
proposed by the Yabloko faction of the Russian parliament
in 1995. “This idea was supported by Russia’s
Foreign Ministry after a long period of our talks and negotiations
with them,” Mitrokhin said. YABLOKO's leader also raised
the issue of a visa-free regime the congress and meetings
of the ELDR party (of which YABLOKO is a fully-fledged member),
as well as the meetings of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats
for Europe Group (ALDE), the third largest group of the European
Parliament.
“This idea was supported by Russia’s Foreign Ministry after
a long period of our talks and negotiations with them [that
it is necessary],” he added.
Sergei Mitrokhin also said that the visa regime represented
the “last rudiment of the iron curtain”.
The action ended by handing a letter by Sergei Mitrokhin
to Ambassador Fernando M. Valenzuela.
“We, Russian advocates of the European way of living and
thinking, consider abolishing of visas a logical and necessary
consequence of development of relations between Russia and
EU,” runs the letter.
According to Mitrokhin, the first step in this way could
be introduction of a visa-free regime for the residents of
the Kaliningrad Region in their trips to the EU countries.
