Visa issuing proceeding smoothly in Russia

Pursuant to earlier announcements on the same subject, the Foreign Ministry announces the following:

As programmed, recent weeks have seen the culmination of the implementation of the plan drawn up in January 2016 for bolstering consular missions. The focus of these plans was the bolstering of the Moscow Consulate General with additional personnel and equipment, expansion of the visa issuing area, upgrading of the digital communication line with the Schengen authorities, and improvement on all levels of the software being used.

These actions have resulted in the full and speedy servicing of applicants for visas, with the time required for issuing now reduced to under ten days from the day the application is submitted to the Consulate.

The objective is for visa application processing time to be even further reduced throughout the peak season. Exceeding of this time limit can now result only in cases where the application is submitted with erroneous data or incomplete documentation. Attention is required because some of the cases of delay reported in the news media were due to just these reasons.

There have been isolated instances of delayed transport and delivery of applications by the private Provider to the consular missions. In close and ongoing cooperation with the Provider, an effort is being made to ensure that the technical issues resulting in such instances – which are in no case the fault of the consular missions – are eliminated.

Consequently, the full normalization and timely issuing of visas on the part of the consular missions in Russia eliminates any concerns of travel agents and Russian citizens as to the scheduling of their holidays in Greece.

This coming Sunday, 29 May, the Alternate Foreign Minister for European Affairs, Nikos Xydakis, will be travelling to Moscow for a series of meetings.