THESSALONIKI – A group of 101 European Parliament members have proposed easing border controls between Greece, Romania and Bulgaria to make it easier for tourists to cross during the busiest travel periods.

Renew Europe sent the proposal in a letter to Greek Immigration and Asylum Minister Dimitris Kairidis, the initiative also announced by the Bulgarian party We Continue the Change, which is close to Renew, although it has not yet been officially accepted as a member.

“We are in Schengen, and we are not at the same time. We must use this reality of the new Schengen,” Romanian MEP Vlad Gheorghe (Renew) told Euractiv Bulgaria in an exclusive interview.

That was in reference to the Schengen Area which guarantees free movement to more than 425 million EU citizens, along with non-EU nationals living in the EU or visiting the EU as tourists, exchange students or for business purposes

https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/renew-meps-propose-a-mini-schengen-between-greece-bulgaria-and-romania/

Gheorghe said that MEPs had received informal yet “very positive” signals from the Greek government that they would support the initiative although Greece has a border with Bulgaria and Romania, unlike Austria, which for now still opposes both countries’ full membership.

While they already benefit from Schengen Area rights for air and sea travel, they are set to become partial members from March 31 and the letter said that Greek tourism sector representative, as well as the hotel, restaurant and catering sectors, are insisting on the abolition of land border controls to facilitate the travel of Romanian and Bulgarian tourists to Greece, he site reported

“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,” the letter reads, adding that abolishing border controls would immediately improve the environmental situation in those areas.

Gheorghe told Euractiv Bulgaria that the three EU countries would not seek approval from other Schengen countries and are simply informing the others to find out how many oppose 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,” Gheorghe said.

“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,” Gheorghe said.