Cyprus and Greece oppose ban on Russian tourist visas
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Cyprus and Greece are rallying behind Germany in opposing a block on visas for Russian tourists wanting to visit the EU, rejecting a call for such a ban by Ukraine.
Over the past weeks, officials from Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania have raised the idea of an EU-wide ban, but German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been the most significant political heavyweight to voice opposition, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin should be blamed for the war in Ukraine rather than Russian people.
EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the calls for a tourist ban at a meeting in Prague at the end of August.
Cyprus, which is home to a large Russian-speaking expatriate commmunity, is taking a similar position to Berlin.
“It would be a decision in the wrong direction,” Kornelios Korneliou, the general secretary of Cyprus’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told POLITICO. “We believe in people-to-people contacts and even Turkish nationals are granted visas by the Cypriot authorities, so we don’t consider that measure has any value for Russians.”
The majority of Cyprus’ Russian speakers, some 50,000, live in Limassol, a city of 237,000 on the southern coast. Russians accounted for 25 percent of total tourist arrivals in the island before the war.
“We shouldn’t prevent these communities from coming into contact with families and friends,” Korneliou added. “The main weapon is European unity and our partners should respect the sensitivities of others on this issue.”
Despite the strong Russian connections, the Cypriot government has backed the bloc’s escalating sanctions against Russia, despite the heavy price on the local economy.
Officials in Cyprus say that despite the fact that many companies had to leave because of the sanctions, there is also a growing number of Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian entrepreneurs, mainly from the IT sector, interested in setting up business in cities such as Limassol, even though no official figures are available.
In neighboring Greece, despite the strong Russophile sentiments that run deep in the society, given the centuries of religious, military, economic and cultural ties, the government was one of the first EU countries to announce it would send Kyiv arms to help fight off the invaders.
But the country is also not considering changing the status of Russian visas, according to government officials.
