The European Union could lift visa requirements for Ukrainians by the second half of 2016.
Kyiv is now awaiting the EU Commission’s final report on the results of Ukraine’s visa liberalization action plan. The report, which is expected to be released in December, then has to be followed by a political decision by the EU on whether to rescind visas requirements for Ukrainian citizens for short-term travel to the EU.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
said during his recent trip to Brussels that Ukraine has fulfilled all of the
requirements to obtain a visa-free regime.
“Ukraine has accomplished all the tasks required
for a visa-free regime to be launched. We hope for a positive decision from our
European partners,” Yatsenyuk said on Dec. 7 after a meeting of
the Association Council, a forum that takes stock of the progress made on the
EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko echoed
these hopes on Dec. 12, saying he expects the EU Commission to officially
acknowledge the progress Ukraine has made in adopting and implementing the
legislation it needs for visa liberalization with Europe.
Brussels seems to have a similar assessment of
Ukraine’s chances of obtaining a visa-free regime: EU Neighborhood Policy
Commissioner Johannes Hahn, speaking to media after talks with Yatsenyuk on
Dec. 7, said he was “pretty sure we’ll have a very positive report (by the EU
commission).”
“But I don’t want to predict the final
outcome,” Hahn said.
And Ukraine has to keep up its fight against
corruption to keep moving closer to the EU, he said.
“The fight against corruption was, is, and
stays at the top of our joint priority list,” Hahn said.
Oleksiy Melnyk, an analyst the Kyiv-based
Razumkov Center think tank, says that judging from officials’ public statements
“it looks realistic to expect a positive decision (on the visa-free regime by
the EU) from the second half of next year.”
The EU is expected to move fast in lifting
visa requirements for Ukrainians once the Ukrainian government fulfills all of
its commitments, Melnyk said.
“But the key here is the fight against
corruption,” he added. “Once Ukraine takes real steps (in fighting corruption),
then it (the approval of visa-free travel) will be a formality.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected]
