As of January 10, 2013, the citizens of 27 EU-member countries and four non-member but Schengen Acquis countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) can arrive in Armenia without visa requirements. With the proposal of Armenian MFA, this draft decision is included in the agenda of Thursday’s Cabinet session.   

Belarus will conclude agreements on visa-free travels with Turkey, Brazil and Argentina, Head of the Central Consular Office of the Foreign Ministry of Belarus Alyaksandr Astrousky told the Contours program on the ONT TV channel. “We are ready to sign agreements on short-term visa-free travels for up to 30 days with Turkey. The document is ready and will be inked when the work on the readmission agreement is completed,” Alyaksandr Astrousky said.

Bulgarian consular offices and visa centers are reporting a significant growth in tourist visas issued to citizens of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Moldova, according to reports of the Foreign Ministry.The highest increase was registered in the number of Bulgarian visas issued to tourists from Belarus, which went up by 80% to 51 822, compared to 28 660 in the same period of 2011.

The Visa-free Europe Coalition is calling upon the European Commission to propose progression of the Republic of Moldova to the second phase of the implementation of the Action Plan on Visa Liberalisation (APVL). The move would be a fair recognition of the progress made by Chisinau in fulfilling the conditions previously agreed with the European Union. A monitoring report1 by members of the Coalition – the Romanian Center for European Policies (CRPE) and the Foreign Policy Association (APE, Chisinau) – showed that, by mid-May 2012, Moldova was fulfilling 86% of the conditions required in the first phase. Considering the complexity of the reforms included in the Action Plan, this result alone spoke volumes about the high commitment of the Moldovan authorities.

The European Union and Georgia started talks on June 4 on a plan to introduce a visa-free travel regime between the EU and the Caucasus nation, said the European commissioner for home affairs, Cecilia Malmstrom. Malmstrom made the announcement at a joint briefing in Brussels with Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze. The negotiations are to finish by autumn, Malmstrom said.

Belarusian Ambassador to Germany Andrei Giro believes that now "it’s not the most appropriate moment to discuss facilitation of the visa regime with the European Union, when more than 200 Belarusian officials can’t even go to the West." He said this on May 21 during the debate in the Bundestag on Germany and the EU’s policy towards Belarus.

Activists of two Belarusian civil society organizations staged a demonstration in Vilnius on May 12 to call for visa-free travel between Lithuania and Belarus. Activists of Belarus Watch and StudAlliance staged the demonstration near the Vilnius Railroad Station within the framework of the "Without a Visa!" campaign.

Photo by BelaPAN

Effective April 13, 2012, the Department of State will adjust visa processing fees.  The fees for most nonimmigrant visa applications will increase, while all immigrant visa processing fees will decrease. The Department is required to recover, as far as possible, the cost of processing visas through the collection of application fees.  For a number of reasons, the current fees no longer cover the actual cost of processing nonimmigrant visas.  The nonimmigrant visa fee increase will support the addition and expansion of overseas facilities, as well as additional staffing required to meet increased visa demand.

Most tourists come to Lithuania from Belarus. This was reported by media director of the State Tourism Department under the Ministry of Economy of Lithuania Raymonda Balnene. In particular, in 2011 Lithuania visited 368 thousand Belarusian tourists, which is 26% more than in 2010. According to statistics, Belarusians make up 21% of all guests in Lithuania. Incidentally, the first time Belarus moved into first place in the number of visitors to Lithuania, ahead of Russia, Germany, Poland and Latvia.

Dear Mr. Minister,
we refer to you with a proposal and appeal to support further steps to promote people-to-people contacts and facilitation of ties between our countries, Lithuania and Belarus.
We strongly appreciate statements of Lithuanian officials declaring openness of Lithuania to Belarusians, as well as the repeal of fee for Lithuanian national visa, although it only applies to a rather narrow category of Belarusian citizens.

Nevertheless, these steps are not enough for a real change to happen in terms of contacts between citizens of Lithuania and Belarus, something we believe to be of key importance to influence situation in today’s Belarus towards democratic transformations.