Translated material
Schengen wall
Visa-free Europe expanded to nine countries
Today, nine newcomers join the European Schengen visa-free area - Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Malta. The head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, who arrived in Tallinn yesterday to participate in local celebrations, called December 21 “one of the most important days” in his life: “Together we were able to destroy border controls - an obstacle to peace, freedom and unity in Europe.”For Europeans this is an important symbolic event. The provisions of the 1985 agreement on the mutual abolition of passport and visa controls, signed by seven European countries in the Luxembourg town of Schengen, were included in the founding documents of the European Union. The disappearance of barriers and border points between countries perfectly illustrates the idea of a United Europe.
The borders did not disappear - they just moved further to the east. And yet, despite the complication of the procedure for obtaining visas at the consulates of Schengen “recruits,” this is rather a benefit for Russians. They will be able to travel freely throughout all Schengen countries by obtaining a visa from the embassy of the “responsible state” - the country they plan to visit first and where border controls will be passed.
The coin also has a flip side. By breaking the law in one of the Schengen countries, you can be blacklisted and lose the opportunity to visit any other country in the United Europe. You can become “restricted from entry” out of ignorance or out of the habit of “living like ours” - for example, in a number of European countries the law prohibits smoking in public places, not to mention the consumption of alcoholic beverages. If you are caught smoking a cigarette in a cafe in Tallinn, you will have to say goodbye to your hopes of seeing the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
The issuance of uniform visas to Russians at the consulates of countries included in the Schengen zone today will begin after the New Year and Christmas holidays. The list of required documents, brought to a single standard by embassies several months ago, will remain the same. The practice of issuing national visas will also remain - if the processing time for a Schengen visa is at least six working days, then a national one can be issued within 24 hours. However, it can only be obtained in exceptional cases at the discretion of the consul.
In the foreseeable future, Bulgaria, Romania, Switzerland and, possibly, Cyprus are going to join the Schengen family. Sofia and Bucharest joined the European Union only on January 1, 2007 , but they have already introduced a single type of visa for EU countries. “Bulgaria and Romania still have to undergo a number of checks related to the strengthening of external borders, which in the future will become the borders of the Schengen zone, as well as to demonstrate compliance of legislation with European agreements on migrants and refugees. However, it is too early to name specific dates for signing the documents,” Vremya Novostei was told at the European Commission’s representative office in Moscow.
Switzerland has already decided that ratification of all necessary treaties should be completed at the beginning of 2008, and in November next year the country will be able to become part of the Schengen zone. The Cypriot Embassy told Vremya Novostey that “although the republic has signed a basic agreement on joining the Schengen zone, we are not ready to ensure complete control of air, sea and land space, as is required of us. In the near future, Cyprus will not strive to join Schengen.”
Today, only the land and sea borders of nine new countries - participants in the Schengen agreement - have opened. At airports, movement controls within the Schengen zone will be lifted only from March 30, 2008. Press attache of the Latvian Embassy Karina Kovale explained to our newspaper: “The abolition of border controls at airports from March 30 does not mean that before this date Russians who received a Schengen visa, for example, at the Latvian Embassy, will not be able to fly from Riga to other countries that have signed agreement. Although such information was previously voiced by embassies, now we have more accurate data: until March 30, passports and visas will be checked at airports, and after that only plane tickets will be checked.”