EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell opposed the proposal to ban Russian citizens from entering the EU. “Forbidding all Russians to enter is not a good idea,” Josep Borrell told a conference in Spain. “We must be more selective,” Bloomberg said, quoting the head of European diplomacy on Monday, Aug. 22.

According to Borrell, the EU shouldn’t open its doors to Russian oligarchs, but “there are many Russians who want to flee the country because they don’t want to live in such a situation.”

The visa ban is a good tool

An EU-wide ban on issuing visas to Russian tourists would be a “good tool” to support the EU’s message to Russia. Lena Düpont, a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament, a member of the German Christian Democratic Party, said this in an interview with the media company DW. The Russians “who travel the most, especially to European countries, are basically not the ones who don’t know what their country and government are doing. [запрет на выдачу виз был бы] way, shall we say, to expand the list of people on the sanctions list with the help of a targeted and meaningful tool,” the politician said.

DuPont has rejected claims that the visa ban would affect Russian dissidents who are trying to leave the country. “Visa policy is one thing and asylum procedures are another. So there is no connection between them. You can use visa policy or visa leverage as a tool without affecting the asylum procedure,” said the MEP.

On the initiative of the Baltic States

The foreign ministers of EU member states will discuss the ban on issuing visas to Russian tourists at a meeting in Prague in late August. Countries like Estonia, Latvia and Finland are in favor of the large-scale introduction of a ban in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged caution about the sweeping visa ban.