PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • Policy Briefs | BEAR Network-PONARS Eurasia Conference

    View
  • The Baltic States Are Also Worried About Russia

    View
  • International Society Must Act in the Wake of Russia’s Failed Opposition

    View
  • The Collapse of the Soviet Union | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
  • Labor Migration in Russia | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Visa-Free Regime for Russian Bureaucrats: End of a Dream?

  • August 2, 2013
  • PONARS Eurasia

(by Olga Gulina) The Russian dream to travel to the EU without visas will most likely not come true soon. Honestly, the first reaction of European politicians to Moscow’s insistence on giving free entrance to Europe for a legion of Russian bureaucrats was even too mild and accommodating.

EU Commissioner Cecilia Maelstrom often spoke about efforts that the EU and Russia need to apply to prevent “a looming stalemate in the negotiations on visa liberalization.” Yet gradually the tone in Brussels has changed—from the pathetic question of “how to facilitate the EU-Russia visa regime” to the realist suspicion that “the EU plays by Putin’s rules,” or even to harsher statements that “the EU shouldn’t reward increasingly repressive Kremlin with visa deal.”

Nevertheless, expectations from the Russian side remained extraordinary high. Russian officials announced that they are still in discussions on the quantity of “service passports” holders who might get the privilege of travelling to Europe without permission. According to the available information, the list could be as long as 150,000 people, which is less than 200,000 considered from the outset. Not all of the EU’s politicians have shared Russia’s enthusiasm, and liked this perspective even less.

Evidently, the EU’s policy toward Russia is dominated by Germany, who was and remains one of the most approachable European partners for Moscow. Earlier, the German government appeared—though reluctantly—to agree to sign a new visa-facilitation agreement with Russia and thus make a step toward visa-free travel. Yet the EU-Russia summit held in Yekaterinburg in June 2013 has shown that the wind is changing. German officials were not willing anymore to unconditionally continue in this direction.

Volker Beck, a parliamentary deputy from the Green Party, insisted on travel restrictions for Russian “nomenklatura and Putin’s loyalists who orchestrate oppression” so that they “should not get the privilege of walking on boulevards in Western cities with pockets full of ‘corrupt’ money.”

Andreas Schockenhoff, Vice-President of the CDU/CSU and parliamentary coordinator for civil society dialogue between Russia and Germany, claimed that “our priority is a facilitated visa regime for students, journalists and scientists,” instead of “visa-free travel support for Putin’s followers.”

The euphoria of the Russian bureaucracy dreaming about open borders to Europe appears to have come to an end. There are a lot of reasons for this, beside the political and normative disconnects between Moscow and Berlin. One of them is the growing amount of refugee and asylum applicants coming from Russia to Europe, and in particular to Germany.

According to the data of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), the majority of potential immigrants in Germany are Russians (10,163), distantly followed by Syrians (4,517) and Afghans (3,448). The growing Russian nationalism that is visible in the political rhetoric of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and his followers further reinforce the concerns of European politicians about potential migration flows from Russia.

Many Germans have tended to see Russia as an emerging democracy struggling with the nefarious heritage of centuries-long centralized and autocratic rule. Nowadays some of them seem to be reconsidering this.

Russia voluntarily detached itself from the EU’s neighborhood, and is not likely to move closer to the European normative order in the years to come. Frank Walter Steinmeier, a former foreign minister of Germany, once confessed that, “to teach Russia democracy is a hopeless task.” Perhaps this explains why Russian public servants working for the Putin regime won’t be getting free gifts from the EU.

Guest post by Olga Gulina invited by Andrey Makarychev, professor at the Institute of Government and Politics, University of Tartu.

See also: The Dual Citizenship Topic in Germany (by Olga Gulina)

 

PONARS Eurasia
+ posts
  • PONARS Eurasia
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/ponars-eurasia/
    Policy Briefs | BEAR Network-PONARS Eurasia Conference
  • PONARS Eurasia
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/ponars-eurasia/
    The Collapse of the Soviet Union | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy
  • PONARS Eurasia
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/ponars-eurasia/
    Labor Migration in Russia | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy
  • PONARS Eurasia
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/ponars-eurasia/
    The View from the South: The War from a Central Asian and Caucasian Perspective (March 28)
Related Topics
  • Makarychev
  • Russia
  • Visa
Previous Article
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Россия, «давай, до свидания»: Вступая в новую эру азербайджано-российских отношений

  • August 2, 2013
  • Anar Valiyev
View
Next Article
  • In the News | Hовости

Snowden Leaves Moscow Airport

  • August 2, 2013
  • Andrew Kuchins
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем
  • Territorial Conflict

Dominating Ukraine’s Sky

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • March 5, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russian Anti-War Protests and the State’s Response

  • Lauren McCarthy
  • March 4, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Отравление оппозиционеров в России превратилось в регулярную практику

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 22, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Авторитарные режимы не вечны: О ситуации в Белоруссии

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 14, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

В Беларуси пока что все идет по российскому сценарию

  • Olexiy Haran
  • August 12, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Опасная игра Лукашенко

  • Pavel Baev
  • August 11, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Власть справилась

  • Sergei Medvedev
  • August 10, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.