Bulgaria introduces Visa Regime for Russian Citizens with Service Passports

The Council of Ministers adopted a decision to partially suspend the operation of a provision of the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Bulgaria and the Government of the Russian Federation on mutual travel of citizens.

With the decision made, holders of valid diplomatic and service passports from Russia will no longer have the right to enter, exit, transit and temporarily reside in Bulgaria without a visa.

For holders of diplomatic passports, a visa regime was introduced already on February 25, 2022 with the adoption of Council Decision (EU) 2022/333. With today's decision of October 20, a visa regime is also introduced for the holders of Russian service passports.

The EC reminds that on September 9, 2022, in the Official Journal of the EC, a decision was published on the complete suspension of the implementation of the Agreement between the European Community and the Russian Federation on the facilitation of the issuance of visas to the citizens of the European Union and the Russian Federation, which enters in force on September 12, 2022, and is applied directly by the Republic of Bulgaria.

The European Commission has repeatedly called for the suspension of the bilateral visa agreements of the member states with the Russian Federation, in particular the visa-free regimes introduced by them for holders of diplomatic and service passports.

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