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Georgians may travel visa-free to EU as soon as March

Georgia signed its Association Agreement with the European Union on June 27, 2014.
Agenda.ge, 13 Jan 2017 - 12:36, Tbilisi,Georgia

Visa-free travel to the European Union (EU) for Georgian citizens may be closer than expected.

Previously it was believed Georgia would receive the long-awaited EU visa waiver by the end of April 2017, but now European Parliament (EP) members are saying this could happen as early as the beginning of March.

The EP published the schedule of its plenary sessions on its website yesterday; the issue of Georgia’s visa waiver will be voted on February 2. This is the date that Georgians had been waiting for since mid-December 2016 after three EU institutions agreed on the final text of the visa liberalisation document.

EP member and rapporteur on Georgia’s visa liberalisation Mariya Gabriel yesterday said she had been promised by the EU Council that the new regulation on Georgia would be published in the official journal of the EU immediately after the February 2 vote in Parliament.

Normally, it takes 20 days for a new regulation to come into force after it is published in the journal, but Gabriel said she was also promised by the Council that Georgia’s visa waiver will go into effect in three days instead of 20.

"All of this means. . . Georgian citizens will be allowed to travel to the EU visa-free very soon, from the beginning of March”, Gabriel said in her interview with Georgia’s Public Broadcaster.

The EU-Georgia visa liberalisation dialogue started in 2012. Once it goes into effect, all Georgian citizens holding biometric passports will be able to enter the EU's Schengen Zone without a visa for 90 days in any 180 day period.