The transition to visa-free travel between Russia and the EU is being delayed to a point where it is becoming "indecent," Russia's foreign minister said on Monday.
Failure to scrap visa requirements is starting "to cause real problems" in relations between Moscow and Brussels, Sergei Lavrov said.
Concerns that a visa-free regime will lead to a rise in crime and illegal immigration are unjustified, he said.
"When we adopt a visa-free regime, border controls and law enforcement procedures will be retained," he said.
"In other words, all security guarantees are in place for the forthcoming transition, and there are no threats," he said.
Russia submitted a draft agreement on scrapping visa requirements to the European Union at the Russia-EU summit in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don on May 31.
The introduction of visa-free travel with the EU has become a major foreign policy goal in Moscow's relations with Brussels. Lavrov said last Wednesday the mutual scrapping of visa requirements between Russia and the EU would have a "transformative" effect on the entire European and Euro-Atlantic political relationship.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on the same day that "the majority of our partners in Europe support this idea," but several EU states reject it, mainly for political reasons.
In July, President Dmitry Medvedev discussed the adoption of a visa-free regime between Russia and the EU with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Berlusconi said there was certain resistance to a visa-free regime, especially from some Eastern European countries.
MOSCOW, September 13 (RIA Novosti)
