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.
I thought any EU member can cross inner-EU borders freely? Seems like i am the same clueless german as the guys in the article🫠
I thought any EU member can cross inner-EU borders freely?
A citizen of an EU member has the right to freedom of movement of labor in the EU. However, people are required to show identity documents at the border and be checked if the member state is not in the Schengen Area.
Presently, Romania is not in the Schengen Area (and this is, in fact, a very politically-contentious situation in Romania, as the European Commission considers them to have fulfilled the requirements for over a decade, but they have been repeatedly blocked by other member states from entering, most-recently by Austria).
Same thing with the UK back when they were still members. Part of the EU, not part of Schengen, so you couldn’t just walk off the eurostar without showing your passport. More checks when flying too, had to stay in the non-schengen zone of airports, etc.
Obviously, it’s politically contentious in Romania, but I think most Europeans, just like these Germans, think it’s stupid and counter-intuitive that Romania’s not part of Schengen yet.
Without googling, I assume it’s because somewhere like the Netherlands or Austria needs to placate the far right with symbolic nonsense, that causes Romanians unnecessary delays, and makes them feel like second tier Europeans.
I think it’s not part of the EU then.
Romania definitely is EU but not Schengen.
What’s Shengen? Is that the part we can all travel in? And it constitudes almost all of the EU then?
Yes, almost all of EU plus even some countries that are not EU, like Switzerland.
I wonder if/when humans will realize that they all live on one planet together
Probably about the time murder is non existent
care to explain how to relate these things?
Murder is when open border.
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
I’m curious how they got into Romania in the first place. Did they not notice the border on their way there either?
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
