As Deutsche Welle reports, at the end of last year, Luhansk University and Dresden University of Technology agreed on cooperation. The first group of 29 students, accompanied by the dean of the Faculty of European Studies, intended to come to Germany for two-week language courses. The universities were already developing plans according to which Ukrainian students could complete part of the curriculum in Dresden and receive diplomas from both Ukrainian and German universities. But the trip for the language courses ended before it even began.
Marina Nedopyokina, dean of the Faculty of European Studies, says that the students had all the documents in hand. At the German Embassy in Kyiv, each student was interviewed individually. A few days later, right during President Yushchenko's visit to Brussels, the students were refused. At the same time, no explanation from the embassy followed. Citing regulatory documents, a representative of the German Foreign Ministry stated that the embassy is not obliged to give reasons for a negative response.
Lawyer Ulrich Drenkelfort, who helped the students with paperwork, sees in this precedent another extreme in contrast to the generosity with which visas were handed out in the recent past. And considering that just a few weeks ago the dean of the university was in Germany and discussed next steps for implementing university exchange programs with German colleagues, the refusal to issue entry visas to students is simply incomprehensible to him from a legal standpoint.
Since the moment a parliamentary commission in Germany began investigating the "visa fraud" case, the likelihood of refusals to issue entry documents to Ukrainian citizens has increased. That is why, already at the preparatory stage, the universities did everything possible to ensure that the paperwork went smoothly. Each student received a personal invitation to participate in the language courses, and the German university assumed all obligations for hosting guests from Luhansk.
According to the rector of Dresden University, Alfred Post, any cooperation involves bilateral visits, including student exchanges. "And if visas are not issued, what kind of cooperation can there be?" the rector wonders.
Neither the university administrations, nor the students, nor their parents can understand how such a situation could have arisen. Very little time has passed since Joschka Fischer's recent visit to Ukraine and Viktor Yushchenko's speech in the Bundestag. Both sides spoke in favor of closer cooperation at various levels. In practice, it is the opposite.
However, the students do not want to give up. They intend to appeal the decision of the German embassy and hope that this issue will be resolved. What angers the students most is that each of them had to pay 35 euros in consular fees, which were not returned. For students, this is a lot of money, given that the average salary in Ukraine is about 80 euros per month.
In Dresden, they found a clever way out: while the situation with the "visa fraud" does not ease, the university will send its instructors to conduct language courses in Ukraine. If, of course, the Ukrainian embassy does not follow the example of the German one.