MOSCOW, November 16. /TASS/. Russia will preserve its relaxed visa requirements for European citizens, but Moscow is taking symmetrical measures on visa fees, Russian State Secretary and Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Ivanov told a plenary session of the State Duma (the lower house of the Russian legislative assembly).
"We are introducing a symmetrical procedure for obtaining visas for EU citizens, but it concerns in this case the amount of the visa fee. As for the documents needed to obtain a Russian visa, it is necessary for all citizens of the EU and other countries, without exception. The lightened requirements will remain in place," he said.
"We continue to honor agreements that our former partners do not honor. If getting a visa for our citizens [in the EU] now is quite a difficult ordeal, in addition to the price there you have to put together a huge number of documents, in our situation everything will remain extremely simple and clear," Ivanov added.
On Thursday, the State Duma adopted at its plenary session a bill in the first reading which abolishes privileges for Russian visas for a number of categories of citizens of European countries. The document was submitted to the State Duma by the government on October 6. Amendments are proposed to the law suspending certain provisions of six international treaties of Russia - with the EU, Denmark, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
The bill suspends in all six treaties the norms on visa fee of €35. The innovation implies that citizens of European countries of all categories will be charged visa fees, determined by the Russian government decree of 2010, stated in the explanatory note to the bill. Thus, "the cost of Russian visas will increase depending on the urgency and multiplicity in the range of $50-300, and the corresponding revenues from their issuance may increase by 2.8 times."