On 23 September in Hrodno, the Lithuanian-Belarusian Civil Initiative BelarusWatch organized a display of short documentary films dedicated to visa issues. The first film called "A split family" is the history of the family, which is due to the artificially created barrier - visa regime – is not able to be together. The parents, who are already elderly people, live in Belarus and their daughter with her family lives in Vilnius. For elderly people it is rather problematic to stay in queues at the consulate and prepare all the necessary documents. And it is even harder for their daughter and her family to get a Belarusian visa.

The Commission reports on the Republic of Moldova's and Ukraine's progress towards visa liberalisation.
The Commission presented today the first progress reports on the implementation by the Republic of Moldova and by Ukraine of their respective Action Plans on Visa Liberalisation. "I know how much visa free travel means to the citizens of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine", said Cecilia Malmström, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs. "The authorities and the citizens of the two countries have worked intensively to implement their Visa Liberalisation Action Plans and I hope that both the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine will continue building on the good results shown. The visa dialogue is an important vehicle for reforms in areas such as fundamental rights, trafficking in human beings, migration management and organised crime and I strongly encourage the national authorities to continue their hard work''.

A Mixed Committee of the EU plus Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland has discussed a proposal to amend the EU rules on local border traffic, with the aim of facilitating border crossings in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, through the inclusion of the Kaliningrad area and certain Polish administrative districts in the eligible border area.

The first progress report on the implementation by Ukraine of the Action Plan on Visa Liberalisation(VLAP) has been released by the European Commission. The Action Plan, setting out all the technical conditions to be met by Ukraine before the possible establishment of a visa-free travel regime,covers the period since November 2010, when it was endorsed by the Council and welcomed by the leaders at the EU-Ukraine Summit.

The first progress report on the implementation by Moldova of the Action Plan on Visa Liberalisation (VLAP) has been released by the European Commission. The Action Plan, setting out all technical conditions to be met by Moldova before the possible establishment of a visa-free travel regime, covers the period since it was endorsed by the Council in November 2010 and presented by the Commission to the Moldovan authorities January 2011.

On 19 September in Druskininkai, Lithuanian Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė chaired the circuit meeting of the interdepartmental working group on the optimization of procedures for issuing visas for tourists, which focused on issues of the Lithuanian-Belarusian border permeability and generalized the 2011 summer tourist season.

Belarus President Alyaksandr Lukashenka signed Decree No. 428 “On conducting talks regarding a draft international agreement and its signing” on 20 September to approve the draft intergovernmental agreement between Belarus and Latvia on the state border regime as a basis to hold the relative negotiations, BelTA learnt from the presidential press service.

The European Commission yesterday proposed to open negotiations on Visa Facilitation and Readmission Agreements with Azerbaijan. A press release said the agreements on easing visa procedures for short-stay visas and on the readmission of irregular migrants between the EU and Azerbaijan would be based on reciprocity benefiting Azerbaijani and European citizens.

On 15 September, the international Coalition for the European Continent Undivided by Visa Barriers, called upon the leaders of the European Union and Eastern Partnership (EaP) states to reiterate their pledge to establish visa-free travel between the EU and the EaP countries.
The members of the coalition believe that “visa liberalisation has a common win-win outcome.”

The issues of simplifying visa regulations for businessmen as well as the ways to advance Belarusian goods to the Croatian market were high on the agenda of the meeting between director of the national marketing center of the Belarus’ Foreign Ministry Baris Smolkin and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Croatia to Russia Nebojsa Cagorovic in Moscow, BelTA learnt from the Belarusian embassy in the Russian Federation.