On Wednesday, the Lithuanian Government approved a proposal not to charge a consular fee for applications to issue national visas for Belarusian citizens. The national visa, otherwise known as the Category D visa, allows a foreign national to enter Lithuania and stay here for more than three months. Such a visa costs 60 euros for Belarusians.

CSF Visa Subgroup

The visa facilitation sub-group is part of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) Civil Society Forum’s Working Group 1 (WG1). Its main aim is to boost the process of visa facilitation and liberalisation for the EaP countries. The main goals are to challenge the unwillingness of some governments of the EU Member States and the European Commission to share information related to questions of potential visa liberalisation for EaP countries; monitor the process of negotiations and implementation of introduced or prospective visa facilitation/liberalisation (VF/VL) dialogues and agreements; track the application of funding earmarked for VF/VL projects, and other similar activities. Representatives of the Coalition for the European Continent Undivided by Visa Barriers regularly take part in the meetings of the subgroup.

On 27 August 2011, the Center for Research and Policy Making (Skopje, Macedonia) in cooperation with the Office for a Democratic Belarus (Brussels, Belgium) and the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies (Vilnius, Lithuania) organized in Belarus a seminar “Transfer of Macedonia NGOs experience on visa liberalization”. This event took place in the framework of the PASOS- led project ‘Paving the road towards visa-free travel between the Eastern Partnership and the EU’, the goal of which is to facilitate establishment of a visa-free regime between the EU and countries of the Eastern Partnership.

The Ministry of Sports and Tourism of Belarus has sent proposals on relaxing visa requirements for tourists to the Council of Ministers, the Director of the Tourism Department of the Sports and Tourism Ministry, Vadzim Karmazin, told BelTA. Once approved by the government, the proposals will be submitted to the head of state.

The Parliament of Lithuania has postponed ratification on an agreement on small-scale local border traffic with Belarus to next week. Chairmen of the parliamentary factions of the Lithuanian Seimas suggested postponing the ratification of the agreement as MPs did not have enough time to thoroughly discuss the draft of the accompanying statement, which is expected to be adopted together with the agreement.

The abolition of visas is not on the Belarus-EU agenda yet, Foreign Minister of Belarus Syarhei Martynau told reporters following a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on 20 June, BelTA learnt from the press service of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry.

Israel wants to abolish visas for Belarusian citizens. This was reported by Minister of Tourism of Israel Stas Misezhnikov at a press conference in Minsk on June 20, expressing hope for visa cancellation for Belarusian citizens in the near future. "Belarus is one of the countries we'd like to cancel the visa regime with," he said.

The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament has adopted a draft Report on the creation of an Agency for the operational management of large-scale information technology (IT) systems in the area of freedom, security and justice.

A regular session of the Belarusian-Lithuanian commission for international automobile transportation took place in Vilnius, the press service of the Belarusian Transport and Communication Ministry told BelTA. The sides shared statistics about automobile cargo traffic between Belarus and Lithuania and discussed prospects for 2012.

Talks on visa regime facilitation between Azerbaijan and the European Union will begin in the near future, Head of EU Delegation, Ambassador Roland Kobia told journalists on Tuesday. He said that the EU now expects that a mandate be granted, emphasizing that Georgia is a positive example in this regard.