Brussels, 26/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - Ukraine and Moldova are making progress on visa liberalisation, Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström has announced. On 23 September, the Commission presented the first progress reports on the implementation by the Republic of Moldova and by Ukraine of their respective Action Plans on Visa Liberalisation. These reports present the state of play in the adoption of the legislative framework (first phase benchmarks), reflecting the situation as of 8 July 2011.
“The authorities and the citizens of the two countries have worked intensively to implement their Visa Liberalisation Action Plans and I hope that both the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine will continue building on the good results shown”, Malmström said. Enlargement Commissioner Štefan Füle, “looking forward to continuous progress”, noted that “our new response to the European Neighbourhood focuses on providing additional opportunities for mobility and deepening our partnership with civil society”.
The Commission highlighted the progress of Ukraine in adopting legislation in border management, migration management, tackling corruption, anti-drugs policy, data protection, and money laundering. In other areas, however, such as document security, asylum, combating organised crime, trafficking in human beings and anti-discrimination, work remains to be done. Moldova has made progress on document security, border and migration management, asylum, human trafficking, money laundering and anti-drugs policy. Data protection, and tackling corruption, discrimination and organised crime still require work.
In the autumn, assessment will be carried out by Commission teams, accompanied by member states' experts in both Ukraine and Moldova which have to adopt the remainder of the legislation. Detailed reports on the situation will be presented before the end of the year. (CG/transl.rt)