You're reading: Diplomat: Russia, EU coordinating steps to switch to visa-free travel

Brussels, January 15 (Interfax) - Russia expects in the near future to coordinate a list of steps with the European Union to switch ultimately to visa-free travel, a high-ranking Russian diplomat said.

"This work is being done now. I expect that we will coordinate these joint steps in the very near future – I hope this won’t take a lot of time – and will start implementing them," Russian permanent representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov told Interfax.

An important step ahead toward this end was done in 2010, Chizhov said.

"We managed to make a qualitative step in the past year – we passed from discussing general principles and goals to the operative phase," Chizhov said.

The diplomat stressed that, in order to switch to visa-free travel, Russia and the EU need to make reciprocal steps rather than reciprocal demands.