Georgia discusses 2nd stage of visa liberalization

/By AzerNews/

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

The Georgian Foreign Ministry discussed the sustainable implementation of the second stage of Visa Liberalization Action Plan (VLAP), a set of detailed compulsory requirements for Georgia to sign a short-term visa-free regime with the EU.

Georgian citizens are one step closer to have a visa-free travel chance to the EU countries, as the country has successfully completed the first phase of the visa liberalization process on October 29 and succeeded to move onto the next stage on the same day.

A working meeting led by Foreign Minister Tamar Beruchashvili focused particularly on the fields related to border management, migration and asylum to realize the second stage of VLAP.

The justice, labor, health and social affairs ministers, as well as representatives of the interior, finance and sustainable and economic development ministries have also attended the meeting.

An EU delegation visited Georgia on November 24 to collect essential information for preparing a progress report on Georgia’s implementation of the second phase of the VLAP.

However, the EU delegation decided to visit Georgia once again next year to evaluate Georgia’s efforts for realizing the second phase of visa liberalization.

Tbilisi maintains that it could be possible for Georgian citizens to pay a visa free travel to European Union countries following the Eastern Partnership Summit in Riga on May 21-22, 2015.

EU-Georgia Visa Liberalization Dialogue was launched on June 4, 2012. It was presented to the Georgian authorities on February 25, 2013.

Georgia has earlier made some corrections to its newly amended visa policy in an effort to keep the right balance between the European Union's requirements and liberal approaches.

The updated visa regulations are aimed to issue multiple-entry visas for a period of 180 days for the citizens of the countries which apply a visa regime with Georgia. The citizens of the countries with which Georgia has signed a visa-free regime - European states, NATO and CIS member-states, as well as the countries which are the important partners - will have the right to stay in the country for a total of 90 days within a period of six months without an entry visa, according to the corrections.