Audiovisual portal

EC Midday press briefing of 08/05/2026

Show transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.

Thanks Finley Duncan for DW. It's a question from Markus.

How concerned is the Commission by the fact that the number of Schengen tourist visas granted to Russians has increased in the last year? Thanks. Marcos indeed. Hi, thanks for the question.

Since Russia's full scale military invasion of Ukraine,

the European Union has taken unprecedented action for Russia to stop this unjust and unprovoked aggression.

Let me remind you that already in 2022 we fully suspended the visa facilitation agreement with Russia.

Also in 2022 we adopted clear guidelines for member states to deprioritize visas for Russians and to focus on security and border controls.

And last year, you will also remember in November 2025,

we adopted stricter visa rules so that Russians can in principle no longer receive multi-entry visas. Now we see clear results.

Schengen visas issued to Russian nationals dropped significantly since 2022.

We were at 4 million at this time before the war,

and we are now at a little bit more than 50 million over the past in the past years.

So now what the Commission is doing,

we are monitoring the implementation of the guidelines and we are working with member states to promote their consistent implementation.

It may be important for context also, so the issuance of visa is a Member State competence.

Every visa application is assessed by Member State authorities on a case by case basis. It is always important to remember.

In addition,

what I can say is what we are doing now is that we are exploring the possibility to introduce targeted restrictive visa measures in consultation with Member States to further address security risks stemming from hostile actions by third countries.

That's something that we've already said in our visa strategy earlier this year. You have a quick follow up.

I have so many hands raised and about 10 minutes left together.

So if it's very quick, and then I'll move on to Are you specifically pressuring the countries that are still granting these because many countries have obviously reduced it to 0,

but some have in the last year increased the number they're granting.

So is there very specific pressure being put on the countries that are increasing the number?

Well, as I've said, we are continuously monitoring the implementation of the guidelines and we're encouraging Member States to do that.

OK, still for Markus, since he's here with me, Magnus, go with a quick one because I, I wanna try to give the floor to.

Media information
ID I-289148
Date 08/05/2026
Duration 02:33
Personalities Markus Lammert
Location Berlaymont press room, Brussels
Institution European Commission
Views 100