State Duma speaker: European Union is driving negotiations on Kaliningrad region into impasse

State Duma speaker Gennady Seleznyov has expressed regret over the European Union's stance on the Kaliningrad region, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea, which, with neighbouring Poland and Lithuania joining the EU, will find itself totally cut off from the rest of Russia. The European Union is insisting on the introduction of visas for trips by Russian citizens to the Kaliningrad region from other regions of Russia and back again.

Commenting on this argument, the head of the lower house of the Russian parliament told RIA Novosti that this kind of position cannot be accepted. In the speaker's view, Brussels "is grossly violating the rights of Russian citizens to free movement across the territory of their own country", while stubbornly driving the negotiations on this subject into impasse.