The facilitation of the visa regime with the EU will help Ukrainian migrant workers return home more often, because the procedure for the re-registration of documents will not be complex.
"If we manage to achieve visa facilitation [with the EU], it will be good for Ukraine, because this will not only simplify the procedure of visits [as tourists or for any other purpose], but also facilitate the possibility for migrants to return home. Perhaps, part of the migrants who leave for Europe will return to Ukraine," Director of the Institute of Demography and Social Studies Ella Libanova said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.
She noted that it was hard to get a work visa for the EU to work there legally.
"Therefore, if people get a chance to work more or less legally, they are afraid of losing this chance and don’t return," Libanova said.
She said that about half of Ukrainian migrant workers worked in Russia.
"If we talk about the EU countries, Ukrainians most often go to Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, Spain, Greece, Portugal and Hungary. Unlike Russia, where circular migration dominates, when Ukrainians work and return home, they go to the EU countries to live," she said.
"For permanent migrant workers, it’s a way of life, rather than a way to earn money," Libanova said.
She said that the scale of labor migration in Ukraine was stable.
Ukrainians abroad send nearly EUR 2 billion to Ukraine every year.
