MADRID, 17 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz has criticized German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for being against limiting visas for Russian tourists in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“This is an attempt, in a sense, to cover up or divide that there are good Russians and bad tsars,” he explained, adding that the German side had not read “all those reports about the huge support for Vladimir Putin’s policy among the ordinary Russians,” according to the Polish news agency PAP.
During a summit of Nordic heads of state in Oslo, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz assured that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “Putin’s war” and “not the Russian people’s”, for which he showed reluctance when it came to close the doors to “people fleeing the Russian regime”.
However, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin told Monday’s summit that she did not think it was right for Russian citizens to be allowed “tourism” in the EU while the Russian military “kills people in Ukraine.”
At the beginning of August, the European Commission avoided commenting on a possible veto on tourist visas for Russian citizens, leaving it to the Member States of the European Union to limit visas for tourists arriving in European territory by land.
This measure would serve to prevent the entry of Russians into the EU through Finland, Estonia or Latvia, since flights from Russia are restricted within the framework of sanctions for the Russian invasion of Ukraine ordered last February by the president, Vladimir Putin.
After the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, called for this measure taking advantage of an interview for the newspaper ‘The Washington Post’ and states such as Finland and Estonia proposed restricting visas, the spokeswoman for the European Commission, Arianna Podesta, has avoided commenting on whether this step may be included in future rounds of sanctions.
