For those of us who like to travel into Croatia by road, e.g. by motorcycle, and do not travel on an EU passport, this looks to be particularly advantageous. Until now those entries were in my experience limited to major border crossings and if you arrived at a small border crossing with a U.S. passport they turned you around and you simply couldn’t cross there, for reasons unknown to me. Presumably all the border crossings from Schengen countries (Slovenia and Hungary) will now be unmanned, making it irrelevant which passport you carry and use.
I’m planning a trip from Munich to Baja, Hungary, southbound over the Alps then east, so this looks helpful.
Emir wrote:
On top of this Croatian football team won Brasil today
LOL, yes! It’s been a good week for Croatia I’d say!
Congrats towards Croatia for finally joining the Schengen-Area! 
This is also a great opportunity to fly directly from Switzerland to any Croatian airfield, as many Swiss airfields with customs O/R are limited to Schengen countries only.
However, I can understand the concerns of the Dutch and Austrian governments, at least regarding Bulgaria. I’ve heard multiple bad stories of corrupt border checks towards the Turkish and also Servian borders. If you also read reviews on Bulgarian customs offices on Google, the situation seems to be even more horrible. I know some people driving each year from Germany to/from Turkey or even Georgia by car (sic!) and they always keep complaining about Bulgarian officers and prefer a detour via Greece and North-Marcedonia, which seems less corrupt and complicated.
At least for the Netherlands, there is also a concern of higher criminal rates and illegal immigration, if Bulgaria and Romania would join Schengen. There are however no concerns regarding Croatia. Especially Romanians face a lot of prejudice regarding criminality, like Polish people faced a few decades ago. Even the Dutch government seems to think all Romanians are gypsies, at least the populist political parties, which is for sure not true at all.
Emir wrote:
Easier crossing the border will trigger more people to come. The majority of tourists in Croatia come from Schengen area and majority of them come by car.Does Croatian police check each car and passport at the land borders towards Slovenia / Hungary? Even before the Schengen area was created, many cars were waved through at Dutch/German borders. And even today, if you visit a place like Andorra (which is neither part of Schengen and/or EU), most cars are waived through at the borders (if officers check at all). Sure, Croatia is an important immigrant country from the south, but I guess, no need to check every car from the north?!
Frans wrote:
However, I can understand the concerns of the Dutch and Austrian governments, at least regarding Bulgaria. I’ve heard multiple bad stories of corrupt border checks towards the Turkish and also Servian borders. If you also read reviews on Bulgarian customs offices on Google, the situation seems to be even more horrible. I know some people driving each year from Germany to/from Turkey or even Georgia by car (sic!) and they always keep complaining about Bulgarian officers and prefer a detour via Greece and North-Marcedonia, which seems less corrupt and complicated.
Both BG and RO would have become Schengen outside borders. Both have a history of not being too reliable. Bulgaria has a land border with Turkey, whose president has for years followed a policy of allowing immigrants to storm EU borders. Security concerns may well be the main reason the Dutch refused them access but what is weird is that only two EU countries spoke out for one veto respectively. Surely there were others concerned, but were they simply scared to voice their opinions for political correctness? Or was it that they were appointed to be the “bad cops” in this affair?
While the “Bulgarian in law” of me is sorry as it adopting Schengen would have made my life easier too, I fully understand the concerns. BG has not had an elected government in 2 years and is run by “provisorical” governments appointed by President Radev, who is not exactly a friend of either the EU nor the West. However, the main problem there are the political parties, neither of which is willing to work with one-another. This makes the country ungovernable. Until that has changed, the decision to refuse Bulgaria entry into Schengen is fully understandable.
I do hope however it’s not a door shut permanently but possibly a kick in the …. of their political party dunderheads who have not managed to form a coalition government after the 4th election now to adapt their behaviour into something worthy of an European democracy rather than a water-melon (too few bananas grow there) republic.
I do hope (like most Bulgarians do) that they can resolve this in the near future and quite possibly get their act together so a new analysis of the situation can be made. Somehow I do think however that this would require a pretty radical exchange of the current political figures for someone who can work in a democratic government.
For Croatia it is a big step forward. To be honest, they also are in a different situation in many regards, most of it being that they don’t have borders with countries involved in massive state sponsored smuggling of immigrants. Still, congratulations and I am certainly happy for them.
This is all playing with words though, because mainland Europe has no functioning borders.
The only real border is one with two fences, a mined strip between them, and a shoot with no questions asked policy – like my country (CZ) had with the Imperialist Nations until about 1989.
So anybody can just cross anywhere, away from major road checkpoints.
Schengen is an unspoken acknowledgement of the above. It would have never come into existence if each European country was an island surrounded by 20 km of water. But, to formalise it, the EU wants a certain amount of “harmonisation” on other issues, and this is a part of the quid pro quo. If you want to be in Schengen, we want to see you agree to certain other things… You can see this in the example of Greece, which needed billions of €, had its back to the wall like Greece always will, so they signed it, along with every other piece of paper shoved in front of them, and for all practical purposes ignores it (the one exception would be swimming between Italy and Corfu) because it would become a large volume immigration channel into the EU.
So the Q to ask is: what does Brussels want from Romania and Bulgaria, but has already got from Croatia?
Peter wrote:
So the Q to ask is: what does Brussels want from Romania and Bulgaria, but has already got from Croatia?
And why do they front two different countries to put in the Veto? Is it really Austrian concerns against Romania or Dutch concerns against Bulgaria? Somehow this does not compute, particularly as I strongly suspect that those were not the only two nations opposed.
I think the answer to your above question has to do with geographical issues. Bulgaria borders on Turkey and has not got anywhere the border force neccessary to really guarantee a “safe” Schengen outside border. Romania has borders with Moldova and Ukraine, which are huge potential refugee risks. It may well be that the refugee potential coming into those countries is the real issue. Along with the suspicion that due to rampant corruption the issuing of Schengen Visa may well open up the Schengen Area to people who are not wanted .
I have no clue about the political situation in Romania, but the Bulgarian one is not one to advertize stability and reliability. Obviously Croatia has managed to convince all Schengen Members that they are both reliable and willing to act as Schengen outer border in a responsible manner.
The other way to look at this is: why has Brussels made exactly zero fuss over Greece’s totally-in-your-face “zero implementation” of Schengen?
Brussels has made 100x more fuss over banning lead from electronics (whose benefit has, I believe, remained unquantified, and cost Europe’s electronics industry enough to buy back Greece’s entire submarine fleet 
) than they made over < tongue in cheek > Greece’s utterly shameful deprivation of human rights and its demolition of the spirit of the EU.
There are so many dimensions there that I would not be able to type them up before my bedtime
But basically Greece’s default on Schengen was obviously made with full consent from Brussels. But the EU could not have blocked Greece ostensibly joining, because Greece needed so much money to stay afloat. Plus the huge euphoria – civilisation supposedly started in Greece?
Now, Romania and Bulgaria are not coming with the same size cap in hand, and are much less symbolic so the dynamics are different. But had they joined, they would have to do what Greece did.
Greece has Schengen… the only “exception” is private aircraft flying non-commercially. You can fly your AOC Citation anywhere into Greece and out.
It is ridiculous. I don’t know if something like “AOPA Europe” exists, probably only a website without any real lobbying activity, because it would be an easy test to get rid of this idiotic practice. Either have GR follow Schengen unilaterally, or kick them out, and have them install some passport stamping booth from hell at every holiday island. Tourists will go ballistic at the wait times ;).
the only “exception” is private aircraft flying non-commercially
Any vehicle. And since Greece has no border with a schengen country, you need a vehicle to get there. You cannot walk.
You can fly your AOC Citation anywhere into Greece and out.
That’s amazing. They must be getting a permission.
Snoopy wrote:
Greece has Schengen… the only “exception” is private aircraft flying non-commercially.
And if I remember right, they justify this as a CUSTOMS issue, not immigration, concerning the aircraft. Hence they can’t be taken to the cleaners for Schengen violation. However, it is a violation of the EU customs union.
