The German government has submitted for discussion a draft EU decision to ban the issuance of Schengen visas to Russian citizens as part of the next sanctions package
Freedom of movement has always been declared as one of the main values and achievements of Western legal civilization (EU acquis communautaire). This right is enshrined in many European constitutions, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 13), Protocol No. 4 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Article 2), the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Article 44).
The visa regime for travel, although in a sense a restriction, nevertheless represents a legal mechanism for exercising the right to freedom of movement.
Moreover, this is precisely a right, not a privilege, as some European politicians now say, positioning themselves as guardians of human rights. In fact, human rights differ from privileges in that they belong to everyone from birth, regardless of gender, race, language, nationality, religion, etc. The privilege is always endowed, giving preference to one to the detriment of the other, which turns the right into an instrument of discrimination.
In other words, before our very eyes there is again a substitution of concepts (this was the case with prisoners of war and mercenaries, with sovereignty and interference in internal affairs, with territorial integrity and the right of peoples to self-determination).
But back to visas. The fact that freedom of movement is a right, not a privilege that applies (!) to citizens of all third countries, is written in Article 2 of the Schengen Borders Code (EU Regulation No. 2016/399 of March 9, 2016). It is for this reason that the EU Visa Code does not provide for a procedure at all that would make it possible to deprive all citizens of any country of issuing short-stay (tourist) visas.
Thus, the initiative to deprive all citizens of Russia of the right to obtain a visa is contrary to the regulations of the European Union, the international obligations of the EU in the field of human rights, and also constitutes nothing more than discrimination based on nationality.
Strictly speaking, the very term “sanctions” should not be used in legal and political terms at all in relation to what the collective West is doing. Because “sanctions” in international law are, albeit negative, but still lawful actions (see Chapter VII of the UN Charter).
Now we are dealing with illegal unilateral restrictive measures by unfriendly states. And the next European initiative to ban the issuance of Schengen visas is an excellent occasion to once again realize this very illegality, balancing on the verge of arbitrariness in the field of human rights.
Konstantin Kosachev
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