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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 [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It might be that English is not my first language but what I understand from your comment is that tourists should be ok for not knowing the laws when travelling between EU countries?

It's true, many people from the west don't think about Schengen, they take it for granted but businesses and to some extent normal people from Romania/Bulgaria suffer from not being in Schengen and nobody seems to slap Austria for this current situation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From your comments I assume that you are Romanian? In that case I can see why you are surprised that tourists dont know about Romania not being part of Schengen.

For me, a German, I can only tell you that for us everything looks like EU and Schengen are an integral part.

At the Airport, we have two Gates:
"EU-Destination" and "Non-EU-Destination". "EU-Destination" Gates are the Schengen gates, but they are just named "EU-Destination". To be honest, I don't know which gates to take when travelling to Romania. Especially as a German, we are surrounded by EU and Schengen countries, there is no border that has a non-Schengen border crossing. I live very close to the border and I cross it weekly. For me, an EU border is nothing I ever think about not crossing. Because of all of that, when I travel inside the EU, I never check about border rules. It's for me one of the great benefits of the EU, that I can just go wherever I want to go without a single care. I hated COVID because of all the different laws while travelling.

Only from your post, I now know that Romania is not part of Schengen. If I would book a vacation in Romania, I would just google "Is Romania part of EU", it shows me a few articles about Romania joining EU in 2007 and I would not look further into it. I think it's reasonable to assume that Romania is part of Schengen because of it being in EU.

But I totally agree with you. It sucks that you are denied Schengen status over and over again. It generally sucks that nobody slaps anyone in foreign politics for their racist remarks in EU. Fuck Austria for denying you Schengen status. I hope you'll get it soon!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yes your assumption is right. However, I kinda know the story from both sides, Schengen and non-Schengen because I have a dual-citizenship(Gude 😊). Maybe that's why for me is "not normal" and I pay attention to this but yes, I know what you mean with the airports.