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Satu Mare(Romania). Two German tourists thought they were in Schengen and ended up with criminal charges (www.presasm.ro)

submitted 1 year ago by OrangeCorvus@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.de

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Translation with deepl:

This is no joke! Two German tourists got a criminal record because they thought Romania had joined the Schengen Area! It all started after the surveillance cameras located near the border line, on the Garbolcz road (Hungary), at the S.P.F. Petea headquarters, around 17.40, issued an alert and transmitted images of two people riding their bicycles from Romania to Hungary, according to PresaSM information.

The images transmitted by the surveillance cameras showed the two people riding around the concrete obstacle and the barrier on the road, illegally crossing the border from Romania into Hungary. The intervention team of S.P.F. Petea was alerted and went to the scene, but the two persons could not be identified and detained.

At the same time, the Hungarian border authorities were informed and sent a team to the area, thus managing to apprehend the two persons. During the border meeting that took place at the S.P.F. Petea headquarters, in order to jointly investigate the border event, the Hungarian border authorities informed that the two persons are German citizens.

According to PresaSM data, in front of the Hungarian authorities, the persons in question declared that they were on holiday and were travelling on bicycles guided by the GPS application of their mobile phones. This is how they arrived in the town of Petea, where the app showed them that there was a border crossing point, as they intended to cross the border from Romania into Hungary. Being used to travelling freely through Europe, without customs controls between countries, they did not know that they could not cross the border there.

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[–] tal@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought any EU member can cross inner-EU borders freely?

A citizen of an EU member has the right to freedom of movement of labor in the EU. However, people are required to show identity documents at the border and be checked if the member state is not in the Schengen Area.

Presently, Romania is not in the Schengen Area (and this is, in fact, a very politically-contentious situation in Romania, as the European Commission considers them to have fulfilled the requirements for over a decade, but they have been repeatedly blocked by other member states from entering, most-recently by Austria).

https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/vienna-maintains-veto-against-bulgaria-romanias-schengen-accession/

[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

Same thing with the UK back when they were still members. Part of the EU, not part of Schengen, so you couldn't just walk off the eurostar without showing your passport. More checks when flying too, had to stay in the non-schengen zone of airports, etc.

Obviously, it's politically contentious in Romania, but I think most Europeans, just like these Germans, think it's stupid and counter-intuitive that Romania's not part of Schengen yet.

Without googling, I assume it's because somewhere like the Netherlands or Austria needs to placate the far right with symbolic nonsense, that causes Romanians unnecessary delays, and makes them feel like second tier Europeans.