Brussels, July 12 (Interfax) - The scrapping of visas is high on the European Union-Russian agenda, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of European Cooperation Vladimir Voronkov, who chairs the Russian negotiating delegation, told journalists.
"For business people, applying for a visa is a burdensome factor, although they have no problem with being entitled to it and they have money for it. But it is a waste of time that is never enough," Voronkov said after the EU-Russia consultations on visa-free travel at the level of senior officials in Brussels on Tuesday.
"This is no longer a factor of merely human contacts, but an economic factor for both sides," he said.
Scrapping visas will allow people from Russian regions to travel directly to Europe, he said.
Currently, the problem of getting visas makes them spend time and money on trip preparations and procedures.
"There are rough estimates that, as a result of abolishing the visa regime, tourism to and from the Russian Federation could at least double. In any case, the income structure of our population allows for such an increase," the diplomat said.
The EU’s fears about a possible influx of migrants from Russia in the event of visa-free travel are "phobias and wrong ideas about the Russian Federation," he said.
"Even by the EU’s internal estimates, we are not a high migration risk country. This is contrived," said the head of the Russian delegation.
"There is no explanation for these phobias, but one can understand them," he said, adding that about 6.5 millions of Russians travel to the EU countries each year.
