Will the European Union ban Russian tourists? Gathered in Prague in the Czech Republic for a two-day meeting on Tuesday August 30 and Wednesday August 31, the foreign ministers will discuss the possibility of banning the granting of tourist visas for Russians. This eventuality does not meet with a consensus within the Twenty-Seven.
Czech Republic in favor of ban
The country currently chairs the Council of the European Union and is one of the countries advocating for such a ban. Unlike Poland, Finland and the Baltic States, the Czech Republic has no common border with Russia but it was one of the first countries to suspend the issuance of tourist visas to Russian nationals – and nationals Belarusians too – the day after the February 24 invasion of Ukraine. Jan Lipavsky, the head of Czech diplomacy, points out that those applying for such visas are not ordinary citizens of Russia but are mostly part of “the elite of Moscow and Saint Petersburg who tacitly support the totalitarian regime of Vladimir Putin”. The Kremlin has just threatened retaliatory measures against countries like the Czech Republic that are pushing for this ban.
These are therefore tourist visas which allow you to move freely throughout the Schengen area. For the rest, especially for humanitarian cases or people persecuted by the Russian regime, exceptions are provided for, this is already the case in the Czech Republic where family reunifications are also authorized. At the same time, it should be remembered that the Czech Republic is one of the European countries which has issued the most residence permits to Ukrainian refugees, with around half a million temporary visas granted, most often to women and children. . For the start of the school year this Thursday, several tens of thousands of Ukrainian children are enrolled in a Czech school.
Germany does not want to close the door to the Russians
There are 536,000 visa applications from Russian tourists that were processed in 2021 by members of the Schengen zone. In the debate on whether or not to ban tourist visas for Russian citizens, Germany and France have adopted a common position, in favor of a relative opening of the borders. For German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Ukraine’s aggression is Putin’s war. No question of penalizing the population. Especially since the Chancellor wants to give opponents of the Kremlin as many chances as possible to continue to take refuge in the European Union without too many obstacles. “It’s Putin’s war, that’s why I find it hard to imagine closing the borders”, said the German chancellor. Liberals associated with the government recall for their part that many Germans have roots in Russia, and that they must be able to continue to visit their families there, without additional restrictions.
But this position is far from achieving consensus in Germany. The conservative opposition recalls in particular that 80% of Russians support the war and the aggression of Ukraine. According to the Bavarian curator Thomas Erndl, tourists are essentially supporters of the Kremlin who use tourist visas to continue to obtain luxury products that they can no longer buy in Moscow or Saint Petersburg. And then Germany must show solidarity with its neighbors in eastern and northern Europe. Whose interests Germany had already ignored with the Nord-Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Italy reluctant to deprive itself of the windfall of Russian tourists
The country could very soon join Germany in a less intransigent position towards Russia when it comes to sanctions. The right-wing coalition, well ahead in the polls, should come to power at the end of September thanks to the early legislative elections, and its members have all shown a more or less pronounced Russophile attitude in recent years. Starting with Matteo Salvini. The leader of La Ligue estimated a few days ago that the economic sanctions against Moscow penalize more than Russia, whose trade surplus is 70 billion dollars. “The EU should ask itself questions about their usefulness”, did he declare. The usefulness of Russian tourists is not to be demonstrated for a transalpine tourist sector which generated nearly 100 billion euros in turnover before the pandemic, or 6% of the country’s GDP.
The possibility of a ban on Russian tourists worries the Italian tourism sector. It is perceived as a brake on the ongoing recovery of the sector. The collapse in the number of Russian visitors to the peninsula has been offset this year by the massive return of American tourists and the influx of those from other European countries. Art cities and seaside resorts were delighted to finally be able to emerge from two years of great difficulty due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And the Minister of Tourism is even pleased that the sector will be able, at the end of the year, to reach the levels of 2019. And in some localities and regions, it may even exceed it, even if this will not completely compensate for the absence Asian tourists or the effects of soaring inflation and the energy crisis. Russian tourists would have been welcomed with open arms in this context. It was already before the conflict in Ukraine. They are usually among the biggest spenders in the luxury boutiques of Milan, in the nightclubs and restaurants of Sardinia or even in the ski resorts of the Dolomites. As for the oligarchs of the Putin regime, their yachts often anchored in Italian ports.