Lisbon, Portugal. File photoMEXICO CITY, Aug 20Portugal opposes an EU ban on Russian tourists and believes that sanctions should not be directed against the Russian people, the European country's foreign ministry said in a comment to a local newspaper.» Portugal believes that the main goal of the sanctions regime should be to punish the Russian military machine, not the Russian people.Portugal will participate in the discussion of this issue at the European level, contributing to the development of a common position of the EU member states,» the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. , excerpts from which are given on its website by the Eco publication. Recently, in a number of European countries, there have been calls to ban all Russians from entering the countries of the Schengen agreement. Such a ban is supported by Estonia, and the Finnish government has previously announced that the country will cut the number of visa applications in Russia by half from the beginning of September to 500 per day. In addition, the Latvian Parliament adopted a statement calling on the EU countries to stop issuing visas to citizens of Russia and Belarus. The German government had previously submitted for discussion a draft EU decision to ban the issuance of Schengen visas to Russian citizens as part of the next sanctions package. At the same time, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that he «hardly» imagines a ban on issuing Schengen visas to Russian citizens. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov noted that European countries unfriendly to Russia are imposing sanctions «to the point of unconsciousness», the Kremlin hopes that over time «common sense will somehow manifest itself.»
The senator commented on the initiative to ban Schengen visas for Russians
