The Turkish call for the reform of the Schengen area was accepted by the PACE. This statement was published by the Turkish mass media. They stated that the General Assembly of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) by a majority of votes adopted the bill on the reform of the Schengen system. At the same time, it was the Turkish PACE group that submitted a report to the assembly on the problems faced by Turkish citizens when obtaining a Schengen visa and suggested changing the system.
“Our proposals will make the process of obtaining a Schengen visa more transparent, fair, and inclusive. And they were adopted by the PACE General Assembly. We are fully confident that the process will improve with our reform proposals,” the Turkish official said.
We will remind you that there have been many scandals with obtaining Schengen visas in Turkey. There were claims that the EU had introduced “secret hidden sanctions” against Turkey, which caused an increasing number of refusals of visas from the European Union to Turkish tourists. Moreover, Turkey’s desire to maintain economic relations with Russia, including the bid to receive Russian tourists in Turkey, played a significant role in the management of these sanctions.
Average tourists who were left without a visa, however, considered the reason not sanctions, but the financial interest of the EU consulates in the almost legal withdrawal of money from the population of Turkey. The mechanism is as follows: tourists applying for a Schengen visa are asked for a huge number of documents to complicate the procedure and increase the probability of any error in the documents, then tourists are made to wait for weeks, and in the end, most requests are rejected. At the same time, the money received during the visa application is not returned. The income of diplomatic missions is significant: as Turkish experts assure, since 2015, Turkish tourists have left more than 26 million euros in the consulates of European countries. At the same time, on average, in Turkey, the fee for applying for a Schengen visa is 120-125 euros, for a British visa – from $130 to $1,105, and for a visa to the United States, it is about $200.