A few days ago former Finnish consul Simo Pietilainen, who smuggled the Russian boy Anton from Russia to Finland in the trunk of his diplomatic car and who is declared persona non-grata in Russia and is suspected of several crimes, published his blog on the subject of assumed threat concerning allegedly increasing child kidnapping to Russia, should visas be abolished.
On the case of former diplomat Pietilainen and child kidnapping from Russia:
The same person, who smuggled the child from Russia, suggests that abolishing visas between RF and EU should be possible only if Russia joins the Hague convention regarding child custody issues.
Such “proposals” reveal the concern of certain parties, that ethnic Russians might leave EU countries for Russia with their children. This in turn testifies to the fact that economic situation in Europe is not expected to improve any time soon.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in his article “Russia and Europe: From an Analysis of Crisis Lessons to a New Partnership Agenda” published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, urges the EU to set deadlines for abolishing visas.
The most important of these is the visa regime between Russia and the EU. We believe that the abolition of visas should come at the beginning of hands-on integration between Russia and the EU, rather than its completion.
Freedom to travel will benefit young people above all, school and university students. They will have more opportunities to go abroad, study and get to know unique cultures of different countries.
By abolishing visas, we also will remove a serious obstacle to the expansion of business. Visas create no problems for large companies today, but for small and mid-sized businesses and innovation companies they pose a serious obstacle. In effect, they artificially freeze the current structure of our economic ties, which is far from perfect.
Finally, deadlines and schedules for abolishing visas will re-energise cooperation between law enforcement agencies of our countries. It will allow them to deal more effectively with illegal migration, drug trafficking, organised crime and terrorism.
So far, the prospects for this initiative remain uncertain since law enforcement bodies lack sufficient incentive to resolve the technical issues involved in going over to a visa-free environment.”
