Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin stated that despite all necessary reforms and launched the process of issuing biometric passports the European Union slows with a visa-free regime with Ukraine. It was supposed that the free-visa regime to be set in May 2015 during Eastern Partnership Summit in Riga. As Pavlo Klimkin said in an interview with Ukrainian online newspaper Focus, EU is waiting because Ukraine has the conflict with Russia in the east and doesn’t control its borders:
“But what bothers European capitals? Some areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions are controlled by the Russian-backed militants. The EU is afraid that they will also be able to enjoy the visa-free regime. So the question is not how successful we are implementing reforms.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister underlined that Russia can use visa-free regime to meet its own needs:
“And that’s one of the Russian scenarios. The European capitals say: how can we give Ukraine a visa-free regime if there is no control over the border?” Klimkin said.
In February 2015 EU mission on visa-free regime came to Ukraine to check the performance of Ukraine’s obligations regarding action plan on visa liberalization.
