An Italian visa in the Leipzig drone case

In early August a drone carrying explosives was found at Leipzig/Halle airport, next to a Ukrainian cargo plane. Germany's interior minister called it a new kind of threat.

German outlets NDR, WDR and Sueddeutsche Zeitung report investigators have identified two men. Nobody has been arrested and nobody has been charged. US intelligence sources told reporters the device resembled ones used by Russian military intelligence. That has not been proven.

One of the two entered Schengen in late April on a tourist visa issued by the Italian mission in Minsk. Italy says it is checking how it was granted.

What is rarely explained outside Europe is what a Schengen visa is.

It is not a German visa or an Italian one. One country issues it and twenty-nine accept it, Bulgaria and Romania included since they joined fully in January 2025. Under the EU Visa Code the application goes to the country you name as your main destination. If that is unclear, to the country you enter first. A consulate decides.

And the decision is not only about immigration. The same rules require that consulate to assess whether the applicant is a security risk to the member states. The check is already in the procedure. What is unusual is the scale: one consulate makes that call for the other twenty-eight.

Last week EU foreign ministers met in Ireland and began discussing tighter rules. The EU's foreign policy chief said there was broad support for restricting tourist visas for Russian citizens and barring former Russian combatants. She did not say which categories, or when. No proposal is on the table yet.

The EU has been here before. In 2022 it suspended its visa facilitation deal with Russia, making visas slower and dearer, but stopped short of a ban.