EU divided over axing Russian diplomats' Schengen privileges

The way Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky sees it, almost three years into Moscow's full-scale assault on Ukraine, Russia is also waging asymmetrical war against Europe while Europe is providing asymmetrical benefits to the Kremlin.

For Prague, the grudge starts back in 2014, when two of its citizens died in an explosion at an ammunition depot in the town of Vrbetice. Four years later, Czech officials say, two Russian agents who were involved in that blast, Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, would go on to attempt to poison former Soviet spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, both times traveling on forged non-biometric passports.

His country already stopped allowing Russian holders of non-biometric passports to enter and Lipavsky wants other European Union countries to follow that lead, especially amid the increase in the number of sabotage incidents across Europe believed to be at the very least linked, if not actually facilitated, by the Kremlin.

"We know the Russian, diplomatic missions serve the hybrid warfare which is being waged against Europe," Lipavsky told DW in an interview. "We have so many cases of Russian sabotages, specific knowledge. I think the secret services are quite clear in that when providing reports with us."

Prague: Pull the privilege

But the Czechs are also renewing a nine-month-old plea to EU counterparts to take another step to limit the movement of Russian passport-holders as well — to stop those accredited as diplomats from using the Schengen free-travel area to leave the country to which they are assigned. The Czech government estimates there are more than 3,000 Russians holding diplomatic passports in the EU, including both officials and their family members. "There is no obligation for any European country to provide the Schengen privilege to those Russian diplomats," he said. 

But some other governments don't see it that way. A letter to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in June highlighting how Russian aggression and "planned sabotage and attacks by Russian intelligence services" required urgent discussion on the Schengen issue was signed by just seven additional ministers — the Baltics, Denmark, Netherlands, Poland and Romania. It has not received sufficient support to be brought to the table at a foreign affairs meeting, despite Czech assurance that "[t]his measure will significantly narrow operational space for Russian agents."

Lipavsky notes that the traditional "fear of retaliation" was anticipated, stating in the letter that "we consider a potential Russian response as bearing far smaller cost than the potential damage Russian diplomats-agents can cause across Europe." 

Would it work?

But Elisabeth Braw, author of "The Defender's Dilemma: Identifying and Deterring Gray-Zone Aggression", says she understands where opponents of the Schengen measure are coming from. "Russia would be 100% certain to say 'European countries have revoked visas for our diplomats, we will do the same thing'," she told DW. "That is how Russia operates. You would find this diplomatic means is becoming a whole new front" in the EU-Russia standoff.

Braw explains she doesn't believe the EU should tolerate Kremlin exploitation of its privileges, but rather that "I don't think it's it's worth the effort because the gain would be relatively limited.  If the Russian government wants to stir up trouble within the European Union, they have other ways of doing it in addition to diplomats roaming within the Schengen area."

Braw agrees that it would be a "strong signal" to send to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but one that might require the EU expending significant resources "trying to figure out what to do, how we would react if Russia were to expel diplomats from our countries in response." That would be a distraction, she says, from "what should be the West's main mission: which is to help Ukraine win."

Limit Russia's range of options

At the same time, Braw shares the Czech concern at the Russian ability to create chaos inside EU territory. "One has to give them credit for being incredibly versatile in the sort of activities in which they're engaging and whom they involve in those activities," she emphasized, agreeing that the increasing amount of sabotage and hybrid tactics are of huge concern. "I like to think of Russia's harmful activities targeted against our countries as like making a soup: They add whatever they happen to have available and if something isn't available, then they use something else."

The Czechs, however, aren't giving up taking a couple more of those ingredients out of the Kremlin's kitchen. "I am continuing lobbying, my colleagues, my ministers — we are working on different diplomatic channels, to explain the importance of such a measure," Lipavsky emphasized. 

Edited by: Andreas Illmer