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The issue of a visa suspension was put on the agenda last week.

After the approval of the mechanism by the Committee, the next step is a vote in a plenary meeting of the European Parliament.

Earlier, EU Ambassadors confirmed the agreement between the EU Council and the European Parliament (EP) about the "visa waiver suspension mechanism" between the EU and third countries.

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As UNIAN reported earlier, the official website of the European Parliament (EP) announced that a preliminary date for the consideration of the visa waiver suspension mechanism is January 18, 2017. MEPs plan to consider relevant regulation 2016/0142 (COD) in first reading during the January session.

Read alsoPoroshenko: EU reaches compromise over visa waiver suspension mechanismOn April 20, 2016, the European Commission proposed that the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union cancel EU short-stay visas for Ukrainian citizens. This proposal is the result of a positive assessment provided by the European Commission last December. Among other things, it confirms that Ukraine has met all the criteria in the framework of the Visa Liberalization Action Plan. On September 26, 2016, the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) backed a report on granting Ukraine a visa-free regime and gave a mandate to start negotiations between the EU institutions.

On November 17, 2016, the European Union, acting at the level of the Committee of Permanent Representatives of EU member states (COREPER), approved the position of the Council of the EU on the inter-institutional negotiations on a visa-free regime for Ukraine, while agreeing with the proposal of the European Commission to provide such a regime.

On December 7, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that the European Union had reached a compromise over a visa waiver suspension mechanism for third countries.