The official website of the European Parliament (EP) has announced a preliminary date for consideration of a European Union visa suspension mechanism, which visa waivers for Ukraine depend on.
The consideration is preliminarily scheduled for January 18, 2017, the EU services said.
MEPs plan to consider relevant regulation 2016/0142 (COD) in first reading during the January session, the EP`s website said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, on April 20, 2016, the European Commission proposed that the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union cancel EU short-stay visas for Ukrainian citizens. This proposal is the result of a positive assessment provided by the European Commission last December. Among other things, it confirms that Ukraine has met all the criteria in the framework of the Visa Liberalization Action Plan. On September 26, 2016, the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) backed a report on granting Ukraine a visa-free regime and gave a mandate to start negotiations between the EU institutions.
On November 17, 2016, the European Union, acting at the level of the Committee of Permanent Representatives of EU member states (COREPER), approved the position of the Council of the EU on the inter-institutional negotiations on a visa-free regime for Ukraine, while agreeing with the proposal of the European Commission to provide such a regime.
A final decision should be approved by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU after the inter-institutional negotiations have been held.
The EU simultaneously said that visa waivers for Ukraine would be introduced after the EU`s approval of the visa suspension mechanism.
Earlier, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that he considered it possible to take a decision on the introduction of visa-free travel for Ukraine before the end of the year.
