As the Brexit saga nears its completion and the United Kingdom prepares to exit the European Union on Feb. 1, Ukraine will extend its visa-free regime for U.K. citizens for one year.
To do this, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will sign a special decree on Jan. 31, Evropeiska Pravda reported on Jan. 28 as part of an explainer with the Europe Without Barriers non-governmental organization.
It also reported that the one-year extension can be extended further, but cannot be infinite.
Ukraine’s visa liberalization process with the European Union started on Sept. 1, 2005, when the country abolished visas for all EU citizens. In June 2017, Ukraine received visa-free entry to the countries of the Schengen Area, which does not include the U.K.
However, when the British public voted in June 2016 to leave the EU, it became clear that existing rules governing the Ukrainian visa regime with the U.K. would change once it left the union.
The U.K. and EU will have an 11-month transition period until the end of 2020, so British travelers will still be able to use their passports at EU border check points to enter the European bloc without a visa.
But, in Ukraine, the visa-free regime for British citizens would cease to exist unless renewed by a separate decree.
Ukraine wants equality
Ukraine has been a visa-free country for British citizens for 15 years already. But that policy has remained a one-way street. Ukrainians need a visa to visit Britain — one of the most difficult visas to receive.
According to Europe Without Barriers, Ukraine ranked third among European countries by number of applications for a British visa in 2017.
But in 13% of the cases — 5,500 Ukrainian citizens — the visa was denied. It was the highest rate of refusal among European countries.
Globally, only one other country — Cambodia — received the same share of refusals from the U.K. However, 13% of all Cambodian applicants was only 247 people.
In 2015, 19% of Ukrainian applicants, 7,607 people, didn’t receive U.K. visas. In addition, on average, Ukrainian citizens have to wait three weeks to the obtain the simplest type of British tourist visa.
Europe Without Barriers suggests this may be because of Russia’s war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and its annexation of Crimea. Since 2014, the war has taken roughly 14,000 lives.
But the non-governmental organization suggests the war has not only influenced Ukrainians’ ability to travel to the U.K., but also Britain’s perception of them.
Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.K., Natalia Galibarenko, believes this issue should be solved in the future.
“We want reciprocity on the visa issue,” Galibarenko told the Hromadske television channel on Jan. 28. “If we continue visa-free entry to Ukraine, we also hope that the U.K. will meet us in the middle.”
