You're reading: Tarasiuk: European Union not to implement free visa regime with Ukraine in near future

The European Union sees only long-term prospects for implementing a free visa regime for citizens of Ukraine, Head of the Verkhovna Rada committee for European integration Borys Tarasiuk said on Monday at a round table dedicated to an issue on "Visa dialog of Ukraine-EU: tasks that face Ukraine."

“Unfortunately, despite of all of the efforts of the Ukrainian
delegation, the EU insists on the preservation of a formula with a view
in the free visa regime – the implementation of the free visa regime in
Ukraine only as a long-term prospect,” he said.

At the same time, Tarasiuk said the Ukrainian side continues to
insist that the implementation of a free visa regime for Ukrainian
citizens to European countries should take place by 2012, when the
European Football Championship will be held in Ukraine.

At the same time, Tarasiuk said that expert working groups would
start work in Ukraine in October-November of the current year. The
reports of these working groups, together with the assessment of the
situation on the borders, will be presented to participants of the
Ukraine-EU summit on December 4.

According to Tarasiuk, one of the main obstacles to the
implementation of a free visa regime between Ukraine and EU is the fact
that Ukraine “hasn’t finished its work on legislation concerning
forming a demographic [database], which then could become a good basis
for issuing biometric passports.”

Moreover, according to Tarasiuk, the EU is anxious about the fact
that there is no general database on the issuing of foreign passports
to Ukrainian citizens. He said that the Europeans fear that this grants
the opportunity for mass falsification.