Visa-free travel has become a marker of geopolitical defeat for Ukraine
Liberalization of the visa regime, which Ukrainian politicians call visa-free, will give Ukrainians nothing.
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Ruslan Bortnik, director of the Ukrainian Institute for Policy Analysis and Management, announced this at a press conference in Kyiv, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Firstly, we are not talking about any visa-free regime today. There is no visa-free regime, it was not planned and is not planned. What we are dealing with today is called visa liberalization. This difference in terms is enormous from the point of view of politics and the lives of individuals. What we are being offered and what we may receive somewhere in mid-July only allows tourists to go to Europe for 90 days, spend their money there, and at the rate of 50-70 euros per day. Secondly, if you want to receive treatment, work, study, or simply live for six months in Europe, you will still be forced to obtain visas for this. That is, the visa regime remains the same,” the political scientist recalled.
He also added that Europeans, in addition to having free access to the Ukrainian market, will also receive money from Ukrainian tourists.
“And for the sake of a visa-free regime, if we follow the logic of our authorities, we have largely lost political and economic sovereignty, implemented hundreds, if not thousands of different European demands with our money, completely changed our policy and are abandoning many of our values. What do we get in return? Right to spend money? So maybe let's do the opposite - we will be happy to receive European money, and let it adapt to some of our requirements. Or there must be some kind of reciprocity. What did we submit and what did we ultimately get?
Therefore, liberalization of the visa regime is a marker of the geopolitical defeat of our political elites and our state,” Bortnik concluded.
Read also: Visa-free holiday in Ukraine gives way to a severe hangover.
Visa-free travel has become a marker of Ukraine's geopolitical defeat.