Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman considers it necessary to undertake a broad awareness raising campaign to elucidate the possibilities of a visa-free regime between Ukraine and the European Union, and urges immigration services to make every effort to prevent queues in the process of issuing of biometric passports for smooth travel by Ukrainian citizens via the border with the EU. The Head of Government said during a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers.

Volodymyr Groysman reminded that as a result of the extensive work of the entire country on the path of pursuing vital reforms, in particular over 150 various measures had been implemented, the visa-free regime had been granted.

"In the near future we will get the opportunity for the Ukrainian citizens to travel without visas in the EU. Most unfortunately, this will happen later than we planned. This is not something that we have as a large gift”, said the Head of Government. “I consider the visa regime for Ukrainians is a relic of the old system which used to separate the country, being home to 45 million people and situated in the heart of Europe, from the civilized world. The fact that we have embarked on this rather difficult, but landmark process to return to the European family proves the only thing - that we are committed to make such steps and to spare no effort to ensure respect for Ukrainians in every corner of the world, so that none could regard us as inferior people. Therefore, we must remove all existing barriers and advance rapidly, including through launching necessary changes within our country".

Speaking about the awareness campaign, Volodymyr Groysman offered to set up representative offices of the border service, consulates, embassies in the border crossing points, as well as to gather interdepartmental groups on borders to work on technical issues that need to be resolved after the introduction of the visa-free regime with the EU.

In this regard he noted the need for new approaches in the work of the Immigration service, the responsibility of which is to provide high quality administrative services to the Ukrainians avoiding queues.

"To ensure people not experiencing any problems the system must function properly. It is significant for us to avoid such phenomena as queues to the passport registration officer. If our people line up to the passport officers, it is another relic that should be "rooted out" from work of our services, which perhaps organized their activities on the ground quite improperly. Passport registration officer, a person who provides the administrative support, must be first polite and do his job very fast so that not to encounter any negative reaction to these services", said the Prime Minister.

He stressed that many powers in this area had been devolved to the local level. "We must guarantee maximum availability for people, to demonstrate organizational coherence, so that everyone could have all of the services in one place", added the Head of Government.