Interior Minister: EU Should Not Rush Visa Freedom with Russia
The European Union must implement a number of measures before allowing visa freedom with Russia, Estonia's Interior Minister Ken-Marti Vaher said.
“First off, Russia must meet all requirements and secondly, EU internal cooperation must be completed,” Vaher said in a press release on Friday upon returning from a meeting of EU internal ministers in Athens.
He said that the EU must adapt a union-wide entry and exit system that will give security agencies an overview of who is currently in the EU.
An EU draft law on the creation of an entry and exit database and automatic border crossing gates is currently being debated by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
Vaher said that he hopes the process of creating the database will begin in 2016 and be ready two years later. The cost is projected at 1.1 billion euros.