{"id":415190,"date":"2024-12-20T13:57:28","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T12:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/12\/20\/georgia-stop-visti-diplomatici\/"},"modified":"2024-12-20T16:40:17","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T15:40:17","slug":"end-to-visa-facilitation-for-georgian-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/12\/20\/end-to-visa-facilitation-for-georgian-officials\/","title":{"rendered":"End to visa facilitation for Georgian officials"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Said and done: it did not take the European Commission long to propose to the Council to suspend the visa liberalization regime for Georgian officials and diplomats<\/strong>, as requested by the member states themselves this week at the urging of EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Kaja Kallas<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In a press release<\/a> published this morning (Dec. 20), the EU executive has given notice that it has proposed the suspension of part of the agreement<\/strong> between Brussels and Tbilisi on the\u00a0facilitation of the issuance of passports for Georgian officials and diplomats<\/strong>, who currently benefit from facilitated procedures for issuing entry permits to the EU and, for short stays (up to 90 days), do not need any visa<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The short-stay visa exemption will continue to apply<\/strong>\u00a0for ordinary citizens<\/strong> of the Caucasian Republic, in line with Brussels’ “dual” approach to Georgia: support for the pro-EU civilian population <\/strong>on the one hand and stricter measures for the pro-Russian government<\/strong> on the other. Today’s proposal is part of the measures the 27 member states\u00a0are (slowly) taking in response to the violent crackdown on dissent<\/strong>\u00a0by security forces<\/a> in Tbilisi supported by Georgian Dream<\/strong>, the ruling party in power since 2012.<\/p>\n

The ball is now in the court of the EU Council<\/strong>, which should\u00a0rule in favor\u00a0since the policy discussion already took place<\/a>\u00a0at the foreign ministers’ meeting on Dec.\u00a016. On that occasion, the qualified majority needed to mandate the Commission was reached\u00a0without much difficulty, as the only countries against were<\/strong>\u00a0Viktor Orb\u00e1n’s Hungary<\/strong> and Robert Fico’s Slovakia<\/strong> (which however managed to<\/a>\u00a0block the\u00a0imposition of\u00a0EU sanctions<\/strong>\u00a0on the leaders of\u00a0Georgian Dream and police forces). Following the approval, it will be up to the\u00a0individual chancelleries to “adopt the necessary measures<\/strong>” to follow up on the decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The EU executive has proposed removing visa exemptions for officials and diplomats from Tbilisi’s state apparatus in response to the violent crackdown on protests that have been shaking the Caucasian country for more than three weeks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":351862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[30084,27451,29873,27454],"class_list":["post-415190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-visa-diplomatic-en","tag-georgia-and","tag-proteste-georgia-2024-en","tag-dream-georgian-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415190"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415214,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415190\/revisions\/415214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}