Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics has expressed the hope that Ukraine will finalize the action plan on visa liberalization with the EU before the EU and Eastern Partnership summit in Riga, which is scheduled for the first half of 2015.
“I would like to hope for and will contribute to finishing and signing the visa liberalization programs with Ukraine and other eastern partners by the Riga summit of the EU and the Eastern Partnership. The ratification process will follow,” he said at a press conference in Dnipropetrovsk on July 17.
According to the diplomat, the visa liberalization is more of a technical matter than political.
The Latvian foreign minister said he believes that the EU-Ukraine visa liberalization program is hampered for technical reasons.
Ukraine and the EU need to do a lot of homework to implement the visa liberalization program, which involves the issues related border control, the format of passports, and certain changes in the legislation, he said. According to Rinkevics, there are still issues that Ukraine needs to settle.
