Vladimir Putin says: We Should Agree on a Visa-free Access Regime in General
Please read the excerpt from the interview with Vladimir Putin, concerning visa regime liberalization:
Andrew Marr: Mr. President, now the British people are thinking of going to France or Switzerland to ski, and you want to persuade them to go to Russia to ski. If they go, how difficult it would be to get visa? Unilaterally, can you without any agreement with the European Union, without negotiations with the EU, undertake steps to relax the visa regime, simplify visa receiving and entry?
Vladimir Putin: As far as the Sochi Olympiad guests are concerned we took a unique decision and its unique character is in the situation that the Olympiad guests, the tourists coming to the Olympiad can come to the Sochi Olympic games without visas, just on the basis of accreditation. And they can get this accreditation at special windows open in all our diplomatic missions. But they don’t need any visa first.
Secondly, we consider that in recent years we have built a unique site from the point of view of its ski piste mileage (150 kilometres) and as I mentioned more than 40 thousand hotel vacancies. Look, maybe it is necessary to upgrade more the service quality, but in general the material base created here is very good for a big tourist centre of world class. I think that it will be very interesting to see – even for those who will not be able to come to the Olympiad – what is Sochi where the Olympiad took place. People over the world always show this interest in the Olympic games sites and we will be glad to see the winter sports fans coming to Sochi to look what Russia did here, how it put into practice this project. And if anyone likes it, this place may become a favourite resort for our friends from the United States or Europe, or Asian countries, including China, why not? We should not forget that people who love winter sports like to see different places, they go with pleasure to Canada, the United States, Switzerland, Italy or France and I hope will come to Sochi.
Now, let me say two words about visas. We offer exclusions for some tourist routes. For example, tourists coming by water transport may enter Saint-Petersburg without visa. We offer other exclusions as well. But we are talking about exclusions anyway while the general regime is as follows: all visa and visa-free access matters are regulated in the world on the basis of reciprocity. And we would like very much to reach an agreement on this visa-free access regime with our colleagues from the European Union. On many occasions I have already mentioned that the European Union has a visa-free access regime with a number of Latin America countries where the criminal situation is not better – and in many cases is worse – than in the Russian Federation. And where is Latin America, and where is Europe? If we look at Russia and Europe, they are too close from my point of view. Aren`t they?
That is why it seems to me that we should agree on a visa-free access regime in general. And as far as some exclusions are concerned, we may talk about some separate events.
The whole interview you can read here: rt.com
Tags: EU, Russia, Sochi, visa facilitation, visa free, visa liberalization, Vladimir Putin, Winter Olympic Games 2014