Renew Europe MEPs proposed to establish a mini-Schengen between Greece, Romania and Bulgaria starting this summer to facilitate the heavy tourist flow between the three countries, Euractiv reported.
The proposal was forwarded to Greek Immigration and Asylum Minister Dimitris Kairidis and signed by Daniel Laurer (PP), Romanian MEPs Dacian Cioloș and Vlad Gheorghe, as well as Greek MEP Georgios Kyrtsos.
Gheorghe claimed that the MEPs had received unofficial but “very positive” signals from the Greek government that they would back the initiative.
“We are in Schengen, and we are not at the same time. We must use this reality of the new Schengen.”
However, Austria opposes full membership for Bulgaria and Romania, even though both countries already benefit from Schengen air and sea transport rights. They are set to become partial members from March 31.
In its letter, Renew Europe mentions the European Commission’s support for the inclusion of Bulgaria and Romania in Schengen. It also claims that representatives of Greek tourism as well as the hotel, restaurant and catering sectors are pushing for the abolition of land border controls to facilitate Romanian and Bulgarian tourists travelling to Greece.
Currently, the control of land borders between the three countries is still causing huge losses to transport companies and tourists in terms of travel costs, financial losses and time losses.
Gheorghe also revealed that the three EU nations would not seek approval from other Schengen countries and were simply informing the others to find out how many people opposed it.
“We are now saying that Austria has nothing to do with this. Obviously, it is not between Romania and Greece. Bulgaria is there. So we should not interfere. The political logic is that we do not want the approval of others. We want to know that nobody opposes it. Nobody would oppose it because they have no interest in doing it.”
The creation of a mini-Schengen should be agreed by early March so that the initiative could take effect as early as by the summer, Gheorghe added.
The ruling party in Greece has every interest in doing it because the Greek tourism associations specifically requested it. They asked the government to do something about it because they make a lot of money from tourism, and a lot of money is lost because of border controls.
