A balancing act of enormous proportions awaits a meeting of European Union foreign ministers penciled in for late August in the Czech Republic. This meeting will aim to come to a decision on whether to issue a blanket Schengen Area visa ban for Russian applicants, or rather not. Paraphrased, oligarchs seldom sell their last Rolex to buy groceries.
Three pressing issues or shall we refer to them as three dimensions are at stake before and during that gathering.
First, the legal dimension of whether or not such a decision would be compatible with current EU legislation in the first place. Second, the "how to end the war in Ukraine" dimensions and whether or not sanctions on individual citizens have any immediate impact on stopping the bloodshed. And last but not least, the Russian nationals dimension and whether ordinary people should be allowed to benefit from continuous international traveler’s rights, or perhaps not?
With Germany being commonly referred to as the "engine of Europe" it does not come as a surprise that local commentators normally very astute in all matters of EU law are quick to point out that a blanket Schengen visa ban for a particular nation and all its nationals is not in line with the so-called Schengen Visa Codex. After all, studying EU law is considered the icing on the cake for all aspiring future legal counsel in the country, only removed from pole position by Maritime Law, which as a sub-section of international law attracts the best salaries.
Hence German television news broadcaster Tagesschau on Aug. 11, under the headline "Estland beschränkt Einreise für Russen" ("Estonia restricts entry (rules) for Russians"), duly pointed out while quoting a European Commission spokesperson that a blanket ban on Schengen zone tourist visa applications is impossible under current European Union law anyhow. Each and every visa application is an individual personal matter she was further quoted as saying. Tagesschau reiterated that last May the European Commission told its member states that individual visa applications can only be rejected should the applicant be deemed a threat to domestic security or the bilateral relations between two nations, respectively, or in principle, if the candidate is considered a risk to public law and order in the visiting country. The program then continued by saying that EU member states cannot infringe upon international law; for example, Schengen visa applicants must be allowed to enter the zone for humanitarian reasons if they are a journalist or considered a dissident.
Nevertheless, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Finland, too, have already voiced support for such a move whilst Germany seems to be much more reluctant. We shall come back to that point in the third section of this brief analysis.
Ordinary citizens do not normally pack their bags and depart on a fortnight’s holiday at short notice and Russian travelers are no exception from this rule. Personal funds must be at the ready, hotels sourced and above all else, flight tickets purchased. Hence even if a blanket Schengen visa ban would be issued for all nationals of Russian origin unless they hold a residence permit in one of the Schengen zone member countries, it would not affect millions of Russian travelers there and then but in the medium term. Medium-term meaning the war on the ground in Ukraine continues long before such a blanket ban impacts the vast majority of Russian citizens.
To put it cynically, it will not have the slightest effect on ending the bloodshed in Ukraine quickly.
So why go for it then? This brings us to our third observation.
As mentioned earlier in this contribution, Germany has, at least for now, a different attitude when compared with the Baltic states and Finland. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made it clear by telling a press conference last week that this war is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war and that the existing sanctions and their impacts would not work if they are directed at everyone, including innocent (Russian) people.
With Poland at loggerheads with Brussels in a manner unseen previously – with relations having soured tremendously recently anyway – and Hungary not automatically siding with the Baltic states either, two further EU member states may refrain from agreeing. Bulgaria will probably have second thoughts as well. Then let us add the Republic of Ireland and even more so Southern Cyprus and their relationship with the Schengen zone member countries (and Southern Cyprus’ relations with Moscow and Russian investors) despite being EU member states and it becomes clear that if a blanket visa ban for Russians requires a unanimous "yes" vote in any EU institution it will be almost as if winning the law-making lottery. Let me explain as this point brings us back to the all-important question of unanimity.
"Unanimity" refers to the voting system in the EU’s Council of Ministers. Assuming that what the European Commission representative told German television is indeed true under current EU law, it is highly unlikely that a "normal" – that is "simple: – majority would suffice in a vote to introduce any blanket visa entry ban. The trickiest point in any such legal document would anyhow be the exit strategy – for how long, and under which conditions could it ever be lifted? Who defines the word "peace agreement" and who monitors it? Certainly not Brussels. NATO? The United Nations? A group of individual guarantor states?
Or, as witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic, will Brussels allow individual member states to withdraw from the Schengen Codex for six months at a time and reinstate national borders with Austria as one such case in point? If that is legally possible, the ensuing question is whether or not that move would enable individual member states to retreat to the system of only issuing national entry visas without any validity in any other Schengen zone country?
Besides these legal and technical considerations, what strikes one the most is that a travel ban is punishing people on the street, citizens eager to go abroad and see the cultures of other nations, students who are planning on a summer holiday by Interrail, retired folk intent on visiting their family residing abroad and so on and so forth.
Putin of course argues that such a visa ban is not possible but behind closed doors in all likelihood would be rather satisfied. Reason? The ordinary Russian citizen would have been given a justification for supporting Putin and his aggression in Ukraine, as the villain in this regard would then be the EU punishing each and every citizen of Russia.
As we started this article by mentioning three dimensions of concern, we should remember one thing: sanctions seldom hit the wealthy who will always find ways to travel and certainly did not put all their (offshore?) financial eggs into one basket.
Sanctions both economic and legal as in the Schengen zone scenario hit the people who are the most vulnerable, those who are trying to make ends meet. Those who go abroad to enjoy the trip of a lifetime, not those who jet around the world every week anyhow.
Stripping them of that right makes them even more supportive of their president regardless of whether they think he is right or wrong.
A blanket ban on Schengen zone visas for all Russian nationals as a tool to immediately end the war in Ukraine? Dear EU leaders, please think twice!
