08/01/2020 (Agence Europe) – The EU and Belarus signed a visa facilitation and readmission agreement on 8 January in Brussels. The agreements were signed by the Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior of Croatia, Davor Božinović, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Vladimir Makei. The agreement on visa facilitation will make it easier for Belarusian citizens to obtain short-term visas to enter the EU, reducing the price of visas to €35. The EU-Belarus readmission agreement aims at establishing procedures for the return of persons who are illegally present in the EU or in Belarus in the case of EU nationals. The European Parliament must give its consent to these two arrangements and the EU Council must formally adopt them. (SP)