MOSCOW/LONDON, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and the European Union may sign an agreement on simplifying visa regulations at the October 4 summit in London, the British ambassador to Moscow said Thursday. Tony Brenton told a joint news conference with Marc Franco, the head of the European Commission's Office in Moscow, that both the EU and Russia were working hard to strike a deal.
Russia's envoy to London, Yury Fedotov, said Wednesday the planned agreement was only a step toward a visa-free regime.
"If this is done, it will be an important and easy-to-understand result of the summit because it [the simplification of visa regulations] affects interests of millions," the diplomat said.
But the signing of this agreement "does not remove the strategic task of achieving visa-free regulations between Russia and the EU."
EU's Franco said the visa agreement should come along with a deal on a readmission agreement.
The readmission agreement will be applied to stateless persons, while simplified visa regulations will regard students, journalists, diplomats and other people who need long-term visas, Franco added.
Readmission agreements are bilateral agreements between the EU and a non-EU country and are designed to facilitate the expulsion of illegal immigrants. It introduces an obligation on the non-EU country to readmit, without any formalities, its own nationals and people coming from or having lived in that country. In return, non-EU countries would receive funds to take back and resettle these people.
