Putin proposes EU-Russia visa-free travel

President Vladimir Putin has presented EU leaders with a bold proposal to consider visa-free travel between Russia and the EU as a way to resolve the dispute over Russia’s Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad.

Putin suggested the EU leaders “consider a new Russian integration initiative that envisages putting into practice the ambitious goal of a shift in the future to visa-free travel for citizens of Russia and the EU,” said his Kremlin press service.

The Soviet Union acquired Kaliningrad from defeated Germany after the Second World War, and the region became an enclave following the 1991 Soviet collapse.

It is impossible to travel overland between Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia without entering either Poland or Lithuania, which are expected to join the EU in 2004 and are being required to toughen up their border controls.

Russia has pushed hard for a transport corridor that would allow Russians to travel visa-free between Kaliningrad and the rest of the country, but EU officials have rejected the idea, instead proposing eased visa procedures.

Putin reaffirmed his push for Russia’s integration into the “common European economic, legal and humanitarian space. It’s becoming obvious that the further development of this process requires a mutual freedom of travel of citizens of Russia and the EU country members,” he said.

There was no immediate official reaction from within the EU but a Brussels diplomat suggested that in the long term, EU governments would welcome a move to visa-free travel if certain condition are met, including controls to ensure criminals and illegal immigrants did not take advantage of the visa-free system.

EU officials have long been concerned about illegal immigration from the former Soviet Union, as well as the spread of drugs and crime. EU embassies in Moscow have strict procedures for issuing visas to Russians.