Polish embassy explains move to cancel licenses for travel agents

The Embassy of Poland in Belarus has invalidated accreditation of 38 Belarusian travel agencies. The official reason is that the firms are "not active enough." The embassy has explained Euroradio what this actuall means.

"We confirm that the Consular Section of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in the Republic of Belarus refused to cooperate with the travel companies that were not active - this applies primarily to the firms which have not filed a visa application since the autumn of 2013. Instead, these firms are continually being replaced by the  Consular Section with the newly accredited companies: 6 new entities were accredited recently, a few more will get accreditation soon," wrote the embassy in response.

On February 19, heads of 38 Belarusian travel agencies were invited to the embassy where a document stating the withdrawal of their accreditation was handed to them. As it turned out, this decision was taken by the ambassy already on February 23. According to the Statistics Committee, about 40 thousand organized tourists from Belarus visited POland. According to the Polish Ambassador in Minsk Leszek Szerepka, Belarusians received more than 400 thousand Polish Schengen visas in 2014.