Romania and Bulgaria join Schengen area by air and sea – DW – 03/31/2024

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Romanian Interior Minister Catalin Predoiu told Romanian news site News.ro on Sunday: “Our efforts to also join [Schengen] with land borders is continuing on multiple diplomatic channels.

Truck drivers have been pressuring their governments to secure visa-free travel across land borders with their European neighbors to beat the long queues that they currently face.

Romania’s main road transport union UNTRR said the average wait at the Hungarian border was 16 hours.

“Romanian hauliers have lost billions of euros every year, just because of long waiting times at borders,” secretary general Radu Dinescu said.

Bulgarian businesses have also expressed their dismay, with Vasil Velev of the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA) pointing out that “only 3% of Bulgarian goods are transported by air and sea, the remaining 97% by land.”

Correction from April 3, 2024: A previous version of this article stated that the Schengen area allows visa-free travel — but Schengen is about removing border passport controls, people from Romania and Bulgaria could already travel to the rest of the EU visa-free. The article also incorrectly stated that all other members of the EU are in the Schengen area, but Ireland and Cyprus are not. Both mistakes have now been corrected. We apologize for the error.

ab/rm (AFP, AP)

Source link : https://www.dw.com/en/eu-romania-and-bulgaria-join-schengen-area-by-air-and-sea/a-68706160

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Publish date : 2024-03-31 07:00:00

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