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.
For anyone interested, this seems to be the crossing in question: https://maps.app.goo.gl/8zYiW5s877R9nSuG8
I’m curious how they got into Romania in the first place. Did they not notice the border on their way there either?
Crossing unmanned border checkpoints when hiking or cycling is pretty common and was generally tolerated, at least in pre-Schengen Europe. There’s also loads of abandonded border crossings similar to this, even between Schengen states.
I’m also not so sure wether they were actually unaware of the rules - it looks like the next border crossing is 20km away, maybe they just didn’t want to take the detour.
It takes a bit more than that to stop a German on a bike
Why would there be an issue getting into Romania? The article doesnt mention if they were tourists staying in Romania or tourists staying in Hungary, but nevertheless if I would be at a border and a border guard asks for my ID I would just show it to them, especially at the airport. But if I am on a bike-ride and saw a border like this, within the EU, I would think nothing of it and go around it. I would never dream that inside of the EU crossing an unmanned border would be an issue
Because Romania is in the EU but it is not in Schengen, so you have to show your ID at the border EVERY TIME you enter/exit the country, same with Bulgaria.
If they would have crossed from Hungary to Austria, it would be no problem since both countries are in Schengen and no ID is necessary.
For this whole drama, the tourists can thank the Austrian gov since they vetoed Romania’s entry into Schengen last year even tho they fulfill all the requirements to do so.
Yeah I understand what the problem is, that’s not what I meant. What I meant is that as a tourist in an inside-EU-country I would not know that this is the case
I would also not conclude that I’m outside of the Schengen region when I have to show my ID at the border. It’s really not unusual to have border-police check your ID inside the Schengen region, in fact its done quite a lot in some areas (in Germany for example when crossing from Austria to Bavaria). So I can totally understand why they just biked around it and didnt think further of it.
So they probably got into Romania like everyone else, by showing their ID at the Airport, but they didnt conclude from this that they are outside of the Schengen region.
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.
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!
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.
Ignorantia juris non excusat
I never said that they should be treated as innocent! I just wanted to shed light on what their thought-process while crossing this border was.
What I mean it doesn’t matter you know or you don’t know. If you get caught, the law treat you the same.
Yeah and thats totally fine. But this comment thread (from my side) never was about the juristic side of that story but only about the thought-process of those people on their bikes.
That’s not really true.
Intent is a very important aspect of guilt. Might be f.e. be the difference between murder and manslaughter
What is even the point of the road with a concrete block like that? Or is it supposed to be a temporary checkpoint or something like that?
One side, or both, temporarily, closed the border crossing in case, for an undetermined period of time. They set down those blocks so people don’t simply open the gate and cross as they please (which they probably did before, even in case the bar wasn’t permanently standing upright anyway). Could be that they, in effect, just blocked it for personal travelers and commercial cargo vehicles, as it seems to me that tractor drivers or other locals just tend to go around it from time to time.
There’s lots of these little country roads in Europe which cross borders and never had real toll buildings, perhaps just a small booth or maybe never even that, only those red-white tollgate bars and a guard. But, since the creation of the Schengen area, it became common for crossings like these to never having been serviced by border personnel ever again…
Many of those rural streets and their crossings however, despite traversing factually open borders for ages, are just allowed for – yes, legal to use by, for crossing into the neighboring country – people who live in that area! Or rather: for cars with regional license plates.
I don’t know if that was the situation or what the deal was there before they put down these concrete blocks, but with the shift towards rightwing ideology all across Europe, the push for faschist bs and “concerns about immigration practices” whathaveyou, it doesn’t surprise me at all that they did.
Because keeping illegals out is easier that way. Or something. It would scare voters / the people™ if they/we didn’t! I’m pretty sure this came out of some politician’s promises. Yay! /s
Besides big roads the border is basically not visible.