BRUSSELS -- The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to approve visa liberalization for Georgia, paving the way for Georgians to travel to the European Union's Schengen zone without obtaining visas.

European lawmakers backed visa liberalization, long anticipated in Georgia, by a vote of 553 to 66, with 28 abstentions.

Georgians will still have to wait for the European Parliament and the European Council to vote on a mechanism allowing for the suspension of visa-free regimes with countries, including Georgia and Ukraine, under certain circumstances once they are in place.

The suspension mechanism was given preliminary approval in December. EU diplomats have told RFE/RL that the final European Parliament vote is expected at the next plenary session, on February 13-16, and that EU member states are poised to agree on it on February 27 or 28.

Georgians are likely to be able to travel visa-free to the Schengen zone starting in late March or early April, diplomats say.

Georgia has long sought greater integration with Europe but has been frustrated with the pace of EU moves to bring it closer.

The South Caucasus country has faced persistent efforts by Russia to increase its influence since the two former Soviet republics fought a five-day war in 2008.

The 26 Schengen Area countries are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.</s>BRUSSELS — The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to approve visa liberalization for Georgia, paving the way for Georgians to travel to the European Union’s Schengen zone without obtaining visas.

European lawmakers backed visa liberalization, long anticipated in Georgia, by a vote of 553 to 66, with 28 abstentions.

Georgians will still have to wait for the European Parliament and the European Council to vote on a mechanism allowing for the suspension of visa-free regimes with countries, including Georgia and Ukraine, under certain circumstances once they are in place.

The suspension mechanism was given preliminary approval in December. EU diplomats have told RFE/RL that the final European Parliament vote is expected at the next plenary session, on February 13-16, and that EU member states are poised to agree on it on February 27 or 28.

Georgians are likely to be able to travel visa-free to the Schengen zone starting in late March or early April, diplomats say.

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.</s>The FINANCIAL -- European Parliament adopted on February 2 the proposal on visa liberalization for Georgia, enabling the biometric passport holders to enter the Schengen area for 90 days within any 180-day period for a holiday, business or any other purpose, except working.

The proposal was approved with 553 votes in favor, 66 against and 28 abstentions, according to Civil.ge.

Parliament and Council negotiators reached an agreement on the legislation on December 13. According to the agreement, the visa free regime will be enforced for Georgian citizens simultaneously with the visa suspension mechanism, which allows EU member states to temporarily reintroduce visa requirements for reasons of public security.

The legislation will now be submitted to the Council for its approval.

“Today is a day of historical significance for Georgia,” Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said in a statement issued before the plenary vote.

“Indeed, today marks Georgia’s great success! Today’s decision will prove that Georgia’s policy on drawing closer to the European Union brings tangible results for every Georgian citizen. We are convinced that our citizens will show exceptional responsibility in accepting this milestone result and achievement, and will scrupulously observe the laws of host countries,” Kvirikashvili said.

The EU-Georgia Visa Liberalization Dialogue was launched in June 2012. In February 2013, the European Commission presented the Georgian Government with an action plan on visa liberalization (VLAP). The Commission committed itself to proposing visa-free travel for short stays in the European Union to Georgian nationals holding biometric passports as soon as all the benchmarks set in the VLAP have been met by the Georgian Government.

Since the launch of the EU-Georgia Visa Liberalization Dialogue, the Commission has reported to the European Parliament and the Council on Georgia’s progress towards fulfilling the VLAP benchmarks identified.

In its fourth and final progress report, adopted on December 18, 2015, the Commission considered that Georgia had made the necessary progress and had undertaken all the required reforms to ensure the effective and sustainable achievement of the remaining benchmarks. Based on this assessment, the Commission confirmed that Georgia had met all the benchmarks set for each of the VLAP’s benchmarks and that it would present, in early 2016, a legislative proposal to amend Regulation (EC) No 539/2001, transferring Georgia to the list of visa-free countries.</s>BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — According to the parliament's agenda, the vote was set to take place during part-session in Brussels on February 2.

"As far as I know, the vote is postponed until the European Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg in February," the source said.

The European Parliament's session in Strasbourg will take place on February 13-16.

In December 2016, the Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission reached an agreement on an emergency suspension mechanism to be triggered in case of overwhelming migration. Such an agreement has been among the conditions raised by the Council for the liberalization of the visa regime for Ukraine and Georgia.

On January 12, 2017, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament approved a visa waiver for Georgia.</s>Visa waiver policy for Georgian citizens expected by March as proposal overcomes last hurdle.

The European Parliament has approved a proposal on visa liberalisation for Georgia, allowing conditional visa-free travel for citizens of the small post-Soviet country.

The policy, which has a snap-back mechanism in case of mass violation of terms, was approved on Thursday with 553 votes in favour, 66 against and 28 abstentions.

The short-term travel visa waiver - expected to come into force in late March following formal approval by the European Council - applies to the Schengen area, which includes 26 countries.

Giorgi Kvirikashvili, the country's prime minister, called it "a truly historic day", expressing gratitude to the EU body.

He also said the government was convinced that Georgians would show "exceptional responsibility in accepting this milestone result and achievement, and will scrupulously observe the laws of host countries".

"Indeed, today marks Georgia's great success! Today's decision will prove that Georgia's policy on drawing closer to the European Union brings tangible results for every Georgian citizen," Kvirikashvili said on Twitter.

Georgia, with only 3.7 million citizens, will lose visa exemption for nine months if its citizens suddenly start making many more asylum requests; stay in the bloc for longer than 90 days at a time; or cause a "substantial increase in the risk to public policy or internal security".

If problems persists, the bloc would be able to extend the suspension for another 18 months in a more complex procedure that would also give the European Parliament a say.

Georgia sees visa-free travel to the EU as part of a geopolitical tussle with Russia over the ex-Soviet state's Western aspirations, which Moscow opposes.

The republic was at the heart of international tensions in 2008 when a five-day war between Tbilisi and Moscow in August led to the previous sharp decline in ties between Russia and the West.

The prospect of easier travel to Europe has been used by the pro-Western government in Tbilisi to win popular backing for painful EU-sponsored reforms.

The EU-Georgia talks on visa liberalisation started in June 2012.</s>The European Parliament voted in a landslide Thursday to back visa-free travel for Georgian citizens to 30 European countries.

Voting 553-66, with 28 abstentions, lawmakers granted Georgia's long-sought privilege to travel to the European Union's Schengen zone without obtaining visas.

The visa-free regime was met with excitement and national festivities in the small Eastern European country that's striving for European Union membership while Russian troops occupy two breakaway regions.

“Today is a day of historical significance for Georgia,” Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said in a statement issued before the plenary vote.

The country's long-awaited visa liberalization enables biometric passport holders to enter the Schengen area for 90 days within any 180-day period.

“Abkhaz and Ossetian compatriots ... will benefit from this decision,” he said, referring to the two Russian-occupied breakaway regions where the majority of citizens are forced to obtain Russian passports. In order to benefit from a visa-free regime, residents of the breakaway regions will need to obtain biometric passports of Georgia, which are inaccessible in occupied territories.

EU support for Georgia's visa liberalization is viewed as a significant geopolitical achievement among officials and civil society activists who have been strong voices for European integration.

Pro-European pundit Ivane Chkhikvadze, head of Euro-integration program at Open Society Foundation — also known as Soros Foundation — called Thursday's vote a “credibility test” for European support, as Georgia “has successfully met all the requirements of EU's 2011 Warsaw Summit Declaration,” in which representatives of the European Union renewed “their commitment to the objectives and continued implementation of the Eastern Partnership.”

The Eastern Partnership is part of a broader EU initiative to shape relations and integration with post-Soviet states and eastern neighbors.

“Georgia must apply to EU membership and must do it now,” Chkhikvadze told VOA's Georgian Service, adding that it will take a strong political will on part of government officials to complete the application. “It will take years of hard work, and the sooner we beginning the journey, the sooner we become the EU member.”

Davit Bakradze, Georgia's current ambassador to the United States, called the vote an important step in approximating EU standards, which is key to another of long-term national aspiration: NATO membership.

“Georgia has a long road ahead” in terms of finalizing integration-focused reforms, he told VOA's Georgian Service.

Eka Gigauri, executive director of Transparency International Georgia, assumed that Thursday's vote may compel Moscow to demonstrate that the former Soviet republic remains within its sphere of influence.

“Georgia has reached one of the most important milestones of its foreign policy,” she told VOA's Georgian Service. “Euro integration will no longer be regarded as Georgia's one-way effort, and politicians in Europe should not be surprised when Georgia makes a call for membership.”

Russia has openly expressed concern over Georgia's EU and NATO aspirations, describing the country as part of its backyard.

Georgia, which has been seeking European integration since becoming the 41st Member State of the Council of Europe in April 1999, has drafted EU-style legislation to abolish the death penalty, comply with European conventions and battle corruption and organized crime.

The latest public opinion poll by Caucasus Research and Resources Center showed that 56 percent of Georgians identify as European.

The visa liberalization, once fully ratified, will allow Georgians to travel freely through all EU member and non-member countries, along with Schengen candidate countries.

EU member nations include Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden.

Non-member countries are Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Schengen candidates are Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia and Romania.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOA's Georgian Service.</s>The European Parliament has agreed to lift visa requirements for Georgia once a suspension mechanism allowing reintroducing visas with third countries enters into force.

Most lawmakers voted in A of the proposal at a session in Brussels on Thursday. MEPs approved the measure by a vote of 553 to 66, with 28 abstentions. No particular date for implementing the decision has been announced. The legislation needs to be formally approved by the Council.

Mariya Gabriel, the Parliamentґs rapporteur for the proposal, said Georgia’s authorities carried out “broad and complex reforms” to order to get the visa waiver, thanking them for consistency and patience.

The legislation still needs to be formally approved by the Council and will only enter into force once the suspension mechanism, which allows the temporary reintroduction of visas in the event of migration surges or risks to public security, is in place.

Holders of Georgian biometric passports will now be able to enter the Schengen Area for 90 days within any 180-day period for holiday, business and other purposes except for that of working.

The visa waiver applies to the Schengen Area, which includes 22 EU member states (all except Ireland, the United Kingdom, Croatia, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria) in addition to Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.</s>Both the south Caucasus country and Ukraine have met the criteria for the EU visa waiver, but Berlin earlier this month led last-minute opposition to the process.

Germany and a handful of other EU countries want the European Parliament to support a beefed up suspension mechanism that makes it easier to suspend visa waivers before granting the privilege to more countries, EU diplomats say.

"We would like this process to be concluded quickly. It is with the European Parliament now, " Merkel told a joint news conference with Georgian Prime Minister Georgy Kvirikashvili.

"I expect that we can agree swiftly on the issue of visa liberalisation for citizens of Georgia," she said.

EU diplomats say that, in addition to waiting for the parliament to approve the emergency brake, European governments want to pressure Ukraine and Russia to implement the Minsk peace deal for eastern Ukraine.

Visa liberalisation is a bargaining chip to press the government in Kiev to move. However, Ukraine has appealed to the EU not to grant Georgia visa-free access first, for fear of weakening the standing in Kiev of the pro-western President Petro Poroshenko, EU diplomats say.

Merkel made a connection between the Georgia and Ukraine bids for visa-free travel to the EU, without going so far as to say that they must proceed at the same pace.

"For me, it is significant that association agreements between the EU and Georgia and also with Ukraine were signed at the same time," she said.

"It is not very easy to explain to one country how things are with another," she added. "However, I understand that each country wants to be treated on its own merits."

For Ukraine and Georgia, visa-free access to the EU is part of a geo-political tussle with Russia over ex-Soviet states with Western aspirations.</s>TBILISI (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, 553 European Parliament's lawmakers supported the decision to introduce a visa-free regime for Georgian nationals traveling to the 28-nation bloc, while 66 opposed the decision.

"I congratulate granting visa free travel to Georgian citizens, Abkhaz, and Ossetian compatriots, who will benefit from this decision," Margvelashvili said, as quoted by the presidential administration's press service.

Georgia has been striving for visa liberalization with the 28-nation bloc for years. In March 2016, the European Commission issued a proposal to waive visas for the Georgians. The process was delayed by negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on the visa suspension mechanism. However the sides reached an accord on the issue in December 2016.

In 2008, Georgia launched a military operation against the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Following the beginning of the operation, Russia and Georgia were engaged in a five-day war, which has resulted in recognition of the two former Georgian regions by Moscow. At the same time, Tbilisi does not recognize their independence and considers them as part of Georgia.</s>European lawmakers passed a new law which could allow Georgian citizens to enter 22 EU member states except Ireland, the U.K., Croatia, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria -- plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland without a visa for short stays.

"The legislation still needs to be formally approved by the [European Council] and will only enter into force once the suspension mechanism, which allows the temporary reintroduction of visas in the event of migration surges or risks to public security, is in place," a European Parliament statement read.
The European Parliament unanimously approves visa-free regime in the Schengen zone for Georgia.