There are various opinions on the Cabinet decision to allow citizens of thirty European countries to visit Armenia without visa. To begin with, the visa exemption for the Schengen countries is unilateral. They can visit our country freely and we will have to enter European countries with visa – many people are under the impression that this is unequal and unfair.
The draft of this decision is included in tomorrow’s agenda of the Armenian Cabinet. In response to a question of www.aravot.am how vulnerable the entry of the citizens of European countries into Armenia would make our country’s security given the fact that anyone could freely step foot in Armenia, Tevan Poghosyan, the director of the International Center for Human Development, said, “We will not have a serious security problem with regard to who will come. As of today one can come to Armenia with tourist visa in the same manner and for low price, if one wants to abuse the system. Basically there is no serious security problem here.”
In Mr. Poghosyan’s words, in the process of visa simplification, the Schengen countries are required to exchange databases. According to Tevan Poghosyan, “It is a precedent, which has been employed by Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia already. And given the experience gained by these countries in the framework of the Eastern Partnership, as a result of which those countries have advanced, Armenia has decided to use that experience too and agrees to visa exemption for citizens of the Schengen countries unilaterally and in advance, as those countries have done.”
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According to the director of the center, one may see unfairness here and express a desire that there is bilateral visa exemption between the countries, but as Mr. Poghosyan said, in this process, everything is regulated in the database system of the Schengen countries and
Armenia has just started to build its own database system and tries to join the general database, “This is a process that will sooner or later lead to bilateral visa exemption.”
When asked whether this would not be a “European snow job,” Europe would get free entry and they would deny Armenia in the future, Mr. Poghosyan said, “No one will ‘take us for a ride’; only we may take ourselves for a ride in the sense that we will not fulfill the obligations and for that reason, the European side will say ‘you see, you haven’t fulfilled your obligations, you cannot get it.’”
In response to our question whether it was possible that we would be denied for political reasons, we had drawbacks in democracy, the specialist said the following, “Naturally, if we share the notion of freedoms that everyone has freedom of movement, we should prove in the same manner that Armenia is one of those countries that sees no problem in visiting Armenia. We should adopt the system of biometric passports and prove that we can control our borders etc. and achieve that the Schengen countries say that citizens of Armenia can visit our countries without visas from now on.”
Nelly BABAYAN
