Russian tourists, persona non grata in Europe?

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Finland has made a more radical choice. Since flights between Russia and Europe have been suspended, Finland, thanks to its 1,300 km of common border, has become “the” gateway for Russians to European territory. Buses from Saint Petersburg rotate there constantly, even more so since the lifting of the latest Covid-related restrictions in mid-July.

To see these tourists shopping in luxury boutiques or spinning at Helsinki airport to catch a plane to another country in the Schengen area is amoral, says public opinion which is moved. One political party even paid for a huge billboard near the border post, which reads: “While you are on vacation, the Ukrainians no longer have a home“. The city of Lappeenranta, it broadcasts the Ukrainian national anthem every day near shopping centers frequented by Russians. A petition has been launched to obtain the abolition of visas.

Reducing these flows has an economic cost, of course, but the government has had no qualms. So far the administration was examining 1,000 visa applications a day, from today it is only about a hundred. To do this, there is no need to impose quotas, all you have to do is change the procedures and create a bottleneck: applications are only accepted in four Finnish embassies or consulates: in Moscow, Murmansk, Petrozavodsk and Saint Petersburg. Services will only be open one day a week, with priority given to work visas, for students or families.

Finland is not the only one to go further than the decision taken by the Europeans. Poland, the Czech Republic and the three Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) have also tightened their visa regimes to varying degrees.

Above all, everyone would like the 27 to go further since the measure adopted yesterday merely makes it more complex but does not prohibit the issuance of visas. Estonia believes in particular that “visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right”.

Except that if Europe has found this compromise, it is because other countries refuse radical measures. France and Germany in particular. We are really on an East / West divide. In the eyes of Paris and Berlin, punishing citizens, artists, intellectuals who have the means to travel would be totally counterproductive. Because we have to maintain contacts with civil society, with the Russians who are the most open to Europe.

Austria and Luxembourg are on the same line: beware, say their leaders to “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater“or to create”a new iron curtain in Europe“.

Faced with this visa freeze, tourists accustomed to traveling are helpless. But even if the middle class has largely developed, they remain a minority.

The Kremlin spokesman denounces “an irrationality bordering on madness“: “Little by little, Brussels, like the European capitals, is showing a total lack of judgmentEven before the announcement of Wednesday August 31, taken after two days of talks, Dmitri Peskov threatened Europe with reprisals. Without specifying which ones.


source site-29