{"id":582,"date":"2017-02-03T04:18:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T04:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/?p=582"},"modified":"2017-02-03T04:18:29","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T04:18:29","slug":"european-parliament-grants-georgia-visa-free-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/2017\/02\/03\/european-parliament-grants-georgia-visa-free-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"European Parliament grants Georgia visa-free travel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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European Parliament grants Georgia visa-free travel<\/h1>\n<\/hgroup>\n
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Visa waiver policy for Georgian citizens expected by March as proposal overcomes last hurdle.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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The policy, which has a snap-back mechanism in case of mass violation of terms, was approved on Thursday with 553 votes in favour, 66 against and 28 abstentions.<\/p>\n

The short-term travel visa waiver – expected to come into force in late March following formal approval by the European Council – applies to the Schengen area, which includes 26 countries.<\/p>\n

Giorgi Kvirikashvili, the country’s prime minister, called it “a truly historic day”, expressing gratitude to the EU body.<\/p>\n

He also said the government was convinced that Georgians would show “exceptional responsibility in accepting this milestone result and achievement, and will scrupulously observe the laws of host countries”.<\/p>\n

“Indeed, today marks Georgia’s great success! Today’s decision will prove that Georgia’s policy on drawing closer to the European Union brings tangible results for every Georgian citizen,” Kvirikashvili\u00a0said on Twitter.<\/p>\n

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Georgia, with only 3.7 million citizens, will lose visa exemption for nine months if its citizens suddenly start making many more asylum requests; stay in the bloc for longer than 90 days at a time; or cause a “substantial increase in the risk to public policy or internal security”.<\/p>\n

If problems persists, the bloc would be able to extend the suspension for another 18 months in a more complex procedure that would also give the European Parliament a say.<\/p>\n

Georgia sees visa-free travel to the EU as part of a geopolitical tussle with Russia over the ex-Soviet state’s Western aspirations, which Moscow opposes.<\/p>\n

The republic was at the heart of international tensions in 2008 when a five-day war between Tbilisi and Moscow in August led to the previous sharp decline in ties between Russia and the West.<\/p>\n

The prospect of easier travel to Europe has been used by the pro-Western government in Tbilisi to win popular backing for painful EU-sponsored reforms.<\/p>\n

The EU-Georgia talks on visa liberalisation started in June 2012.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

European Parliament grants Georgia visa-free travel Visa waiver policy for Georgian citizens expected by March as proposal overcomes last hurdle. The policy, which has a snap-back mechanism in case of mass violation of terms, was approved on Thursday with 553 votes in favour, 66 against and 28 abstentions. The short-term travel visa waiver – expected to come into force in… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-georgia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":583,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}