Russia proposes visa deal with EU

[pampango]

Source: BBC

Russia has proposed to the EU scrapping reciprocal visa requirements, saying it wants to make life easier for business and tourism.

He (Medvedev) said there was a "high degree of readiness" in Russia to lift visa requirements, but the situation in the 27-nation EU was "rather different".

The EU and Russia have been considering visa-free travel since 2005.

He said each EU member state had its own view on the question of cancelling visas for Russian citizens. "The main thing - it's not even a question of partnership - it would simply make life easier for millions of people," he said.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10205688.stm

[dipsydoodle]

1. That will be cool

:thumbsup:

[DFW]

2. Not such a good deal for the Germans

Germany has already been the Happy Hunting Ground for Russian organized crime since 1991. If hordes of Russians
can drop in here any time they want, the relatively docile and undermanned German cops will be totally
unable to cope, promting calls from the far right for heavy police controls, the likes of which have not seen
since East Germany dissolved. The Russians should get their own crime problem under control before they can
overrun the relatively open West with their own bad guys.

Ever since Romanians and Bulgarians could travel here to Germany (just a couple of years old), friends of mine
in local law enforcement tell me that the number of solved violent crimes, estimated to be about 10% of the total,
committed here by Romanians and Bulgarians has tripled, and Russia has a lot more unemployed ex-paramilitary
than those two countries combined.

The increased violent crime would be bad enough. The inevitable rise of a big rightist extremist reaction
movement across Western Europe would be downright frightening. Better to take this one slowly.