In particular, the Commission draws Ukraine’s attention to the lack of progress in implementing VLAP objectives for liberalization of visa regime. This is stated in the letter of Deputy Minister for foreign affairs Pavlo Klimkin addressed to First Vice-Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev.

The EU-Ukraine negotiations on the amendment of the Visa Facilitation Agreement has been finalized. So what awaits for Ukrainian visa applicants next year?

Europe without barriers presents the key finding conclusions of the Project on “Migration potential of Ukraine in the context of acquiring a visa-free regime with the EU, Will lifting visa regime affect the number of potential migrants from Ukraine to the EU?" In summer 2011, the Donetsk Institute of Social Research and Political Analysis in partnership with eight think tanks of the civic initiative "Europe without Barriers" carried out a large-scale research of Ukraine’s migratory profile in the context of acquiring a visa-free regime with the EU.The research was conducted with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation.

The Civil Society Forum “EU-Ukraine Summit 2011: Civil Society Dimension” took place in Kyiv on December 19.Over one hundred representatives from civil society, business associations and think tanks participated in the meeting. The Forum also hosted High officials from the EU, represented by the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy.

This week, December 6-8, "Europe without barriers" has paid public and unofficial visits to the Europe’s political capital, Brussels. The public events were held in the European Parliament building and European Policy Centre (EPC) at support of the International Foundation «European Development». Ukrainian experts has presented research findings of the independent monitoring of the EU Member States’ visa practices in Ukraine, on the Consulates’ and Embassies’ adherence to the EU relevant legislation, as well as on Ukraine’s performance in implementation of the Action Plan on visa liberalization.

On Friday, November 25th, 2011, Civic initiative “Europe without Barriers” has conducted press-briefing on: ”The first year of the Action plan on visa liberalization between the EU and Ukraine: what has been done, what lies ahead?”. The event was held as a part of the multilateral project "Paving the road towards visa-free travel between the Eastern Partnership countries and the EU”, initiated by the PASOS (Policy Association for an Open Society, Prague). Civic monitoring of the implementation of the Action plan on visa liberalisation of EU to Ukraine is carrying out at support of the International Renaissance Foundation.

The European Parliament on Thursday supported a joint resolution on Ukraine by a simple majority. The vote took place during a plenary session in Strasbourg without any debate beforehand.

Ukrainian experts’ community is demanding from the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych to be coherent in the official Kyiv argumentations concerning Ukraine’s European integration course. Various NGOs and think tanks representatives, as well as public activists consider the option to postpone the conclusion of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU to be unacceptable

EWB presents the monitoring outcomes (the fifth wave) of the EU and Schengen Consulates’ visa policy to Ukrainian citizens, conducted with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. We suggest you to consider the components of visa procedure in more details. Here you will find a presentation that contains the monitoring outcomes, demonstrating availability of multiple entry and long term visas, and waiting period for the decision on application. The overall rating was complied on the basis of this data

Heads of States and Governments adopted Joint Declaration at the 2nd Eastern Partnership Summit in Warsaw on Friday.The Joint Declaration endorsed by the Eastern Partnership Summit in Warsaw today says the participants“acknowledgedthe European aspirations and the European choice of some partners and their commitment to build deep and sustainable democracy.” It goes on to say that the Eastern Partnership plays a particular role in supporting “those who seek an ever closer relationship with the EU.”

Coalition for the European Continent Undivided by Visa Barriers has published an Appeal to the leaders of the European Union and Eastern Partnership (EaP) states gathered at the EU-EaP summit in Warsaw on the 29th-30th of September, 2011, calling them to reiterate their pledge to establish visa-free travel between the EU and the EaP countries and to commit to do so as soon as the technical criteria are met.

Today EWB has presented the results of the fifth wave of independent monitoring on issuing visas by the EU Consular offices to Ukrainian citizens with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. The results of research, main conclusions and ratings of 20 EU and Schengen consulates were announced in the presence experts, state actors, the representatives of the diplomatic services, the representatives from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and Media. Here are the main conclusions.

The progress report on Ukraine reflects the state of play until 8 July 2011. The report is rather balanced, provided both achievements and shortcomings of VLAP first phase implementation. A second report will be made by the end of 2011. An evaluation mission will be organised by the EU in autumn 2011.

Ukrainians have been receiving more visas in 2010 than even before, while reducing the level of visa refusals. However, the progress of the country is quite modest in comparison with Russia, China and Turkey. Among the Eastern Partnership countries the best case of "friendly" visa policy with the EU is Belarus while the worst case is definitely Georgia.

The practice of the EU consular services is still determined rather by Member State’s internal regulations, then by common rules set by the EU Visa Code. “Return Report” which obliges visa applicants to visit consulates after their return home is one of the examples of the EU visa policy diversity.

At the first day of its Ukrainian broadcasting, on August 24, Euronews, with the comments of EWB, speaks about the EU visas for Ukrainians.

The demand to provide the Work Record Book (“trudova knyzhka”) for visa application was withdrawn by the Consulate of Switzerland after the EWB and "La Strada - Ukraine" drew their attention to the illegality of such requirement. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine appealed to the Embassy of Switzerland in this matter.

Migration policy of Ukraine requires serious reforms, which are not possible without high-quality strategic planning, coordination, resources and political will. We draw your attention to this research, which contains the conclusions and recommendations made by the international working group on migration policy issues for Ukraine's migration policy. Expert conclusions and recommendations has been developed, on the basis of relevant international experience of reforms within the policy areas investigated.

EWB continues to present a number of surveys on documents’ security and migration policy issues. One of them highlights an undeniable experience of Poland and Serbia in the area of migration policy. Serbia and Poland had overcome a long way to solve the problems in the area of migration policy. The attention is also paid to cooperation with NGOs and think tanks.

The EU External Action Service has recently published the List of the EU-Ukraine Association Agenda priorities for 2011-12 on its official website. This List is a new practical tool to prepare to implement the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU until its entry into force.

The publication provides the policy analysis in the spheres of migration and documents security as basic requirements for visa liberalisation with the European Union.

This publication discloses the peculiarities of the visa liberalisation process in the Western Balkan states, which are actual ones for Ukraine. The experience of the Road Maps implementation (2008–2010) by Serbia, Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina is analyzed.Main attention is concentrated on the issues of documents’ security, migration and border management, public order and fundamental rights. Lessons should be learned by Ukraine and other EaP countries are described.

With this publication Europe without Barriers (EWB) summarizes comprehensive data of the large scale field research conducted in the summer 2010 with the support of International Renaissance Foundation.

This publication is about the strategy and tactical priorities on the path toward visa-free regime for the countries of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) with the European Union. Assessments and recommendations developed by the expert group disclose available mechanisms and opportunities for further visa liberalisation. The research is aimed for strengthening and further professionalisation of international public impact and lobbying of the freedom of movement in Europe. Famous European think tanks and NGOs such as European Policy Centre (Brussels) and European Stability Initiative (Berlin-Brussels-Istanbul) contributed to this project.

This publication is another contribution of Center for Peace, Conversion and Foreign Policy of Ukraine into its monitoring of visa policy and practice conducted by EU Member States. Previous publications, in particular “Ukrainian View on Visa Policy of the European Union Member States” (2006) and “Ukraine-EU: on the Way to Visa Free Regime” (2007) caused signifcant resonance and were the subject for broad discussions inside expert and public circles.

The publication is aimed to summarize Ukraine’s homework needed to be done to achieve visa free regime with the EU. The experience of international campaigns against visa barriers in Europe has been analyzed. Recommendations are provided for the better use of existing mechanisms and opportunities, in particular, the Agreement on the Facilitation of the Issuance of Visas between EU and Ukraine.

The publication is about the outcomes of independent monitoring of the visa issuance to the citizens of Ukraine by the EU Member States’ consulates. The monitoring was conducted by the all-Ukrainian consortium of the NGOs and think-tanks under coordination of CPCFPU in 2008.

The surveys of this Report were carried out towards the end of 2005 in the Consulates of some EU Member States – in Kyiv, Chisinau, Minsk and Moscow. We surveyed the visa systems of Belgium, Finland, France, Lithuania, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom. The project included interviews with 961 persons who had lodged visa applications, with 85% of the positive response ratio.

This Report presents an analysis of the changes that have occurred during the last few years in the visa procedures followed by a selected group of surveyed EU Member State consulates. The report and the analysis of changes in the visa procedures followed are based on the results of two surveys. The first was carried out in 2005, and the second, during the second half of 2008.