Belarus, EU agree readmission deal

Belarus and the European Commission have agreed in general a draft text for their agreement on readmission, the interior ministry said in a statement following Tuesday's talks in Minsk.

Participating in the talks were representatives of Belarusian government agencies and the European Commission's Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs.

The draft agreement grants Belarus a transition period during which it will not be required to readmit third-country citizens and stateless persons who have entered the European Union illegally from its territory, said Alyaksey Byahun, head of the interior ministry's Citizenship and Migration Office.

"This time is needed to establish mechanisms of work with such a group of people, as well as to create appropriate infrastructure in the country," he said.
The official was referring to the establishment of temporary accommodation centers for illegal migrants. The European Union has promised to donate €7 million to Belarus for the establishment of such facilities.

It was not immediately known how long the transition period may last but unconfirmed reports suggest that it will be shorter than three-year transition periods offered by the EU to Russia and Ukraine in the framework of similar deals.

The agreement is to be signed together with a Belarus-EU visa facilitation agreement.

Belarus and the 28-nation bloc have been in talks on the agreements for several years.

Speaking to reporters in Minsk in November 2016, then Deputy Foreign Minister Alena Kupchyna said that Minsk was ready to assume obligations for the readmission of citizens of third countries, "but there is still an open issue regarding a transition period for the implementation of provisions, which we have not yet been offered."

Belarus needs a three-year transition period to implement the provisions of the agreement, Ms. Kupchyna explained. Such a period was given to other countries with which the EU signed such agreements, including Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, she noted.

On June 1, Dzmitry Mironchyk, spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, said that the security of Belarusian diplomatic passports was the only obstacle to signing the visa facilitation deal with the EU.

He said that the EU only brought up the issue of the security of Belarusian diplomatic passports in April 2015, shortly before an Eastern Partnership summit in Riga, Latvia, where a Belarusian delegation was going to initial the visa facilitation agreement.

“It has already been announced that biometric passports, which will meet the highest security requirements, will start to be issued in our country before the end of 2018,” Mr. Mironchyk said. “Passports for diplomats will become biometric alongside with passports for ordinary citizens. They will only have a different color. So this issue is a temporary one and will be resolved.”

It was not immediately known whether an agreement on the matter was reached at the June 20 talks.