MINSK, 26 December (BelTA) – The Belarusian Interior Ministry expects a considerable decrease in prices for Schengen visas for Belarusians in 2019. Aleksei Begun, Head of the Citizenship and Migration Department of the Belarusian Interior Ministry, made the relevant statement in an interview with the Na Strazhe newspaper, BelTA has learned.
Aleksei Begun said that consultations with European Union representatives on the agreement on facilitating visa formalities had been finished. The document is agreed and ready for getting initialed and for intrastate procedures. In his words, several matters are left to be addressed. Some of them are located in the area of political declarations. The European Union representatives would like to make them part of the agreement on facilitating visa formalities. “We expect the final talks to take place in the near future. Taking into account a noticeable improvement in certain branches of mutual cooperation we hope that after the relevant documents are signed, our citizens will be able to pay much less for the visas as early as in 2019,” noted the official.
The Interior Ministry representative also mentioned plans to switch to a new type of passports in 2019. The Belarusian state-run securities and bank note printing company Goznak has recently printed several new personalized biometric passports for Belarus as a step to advertise its specialized equipment. Belarusian architectural landmarks are displayed on every page of the passports. The final design of the passport and the ID cards has yet to be approved, said Aleksei Begun.
Preparations for introducing biometric technologies in national documents are virtually over. Samples of the new passports and the ID cards are going through the approval process. Technical specifications for the system to issue the documents and collect biometric data are being worked out. The system will have to comply with international standards. A tender to choose which company will provide this service will be held early next year. The implementation of consequent measures will allow issuing new passports starting 2019 in addition to deploying a center for issuing these personalized documents.
