Road To Europe An Obstacle Course

The Ukrainians who have managed in spite of all difficulties to obtain their Schengen visas and saved the money for a bus ticket to Western Europe, could well confront unexpected trouble, border guards who seem not to find anything wrong with the passengers but still refuse to release the buses for eight to fifteen hours.

The Lviv Inturtrans [foreign tourist transportation] Company that deals in bus carriage from Ukraine to Belgium and France has experienced several situations when its buses were halted at the German township of Forst at the border. No reasons were given and no one apologized. A record was set on June 21 last year when the bus stood idle at the crossing point for 15 hours. And on the whole, according to Lviv-Inturtrans” Director Vasyl Popovych, 4-5-hour delays have become the norm: the German border guards at Forst “openly demonstrated their superior attitude toward Ukrainian citizens, including our company’s personnel, they constantly insulted the passengers, they searched their and the drivers’ baggage several times without any explanation, they ordered them to carry the baggage from place to place while citizens of other countries crossed the border without problem.” Popovych argued: if a Lviv-Inturtrans bus is really carrying lawbreakers who German authorities don’t want to let in, then, as is internationally practiced, such passengers are ordered to get off and the bus goes further on its itinerary. “As a transport company, we sell tickets on the basis of a foreign passport and a Schengen visa. We can’t know if our passenger has a criminal record,” says Vasyl Halushka, the Lviv-Inturtrans manager in Belgium. According to him, it is especially hard for bus passengers to be detained in winter: “We can’t warm up the bus — the working engine emits exhaust gases and border guards forbid it. So people have to sit waiting for hours in a cold bus.”

Problems also arise on the way back from Western Europe: some passengers may have expired visas or certificates issued by Ukrainian embassies to substitute lost passports. It is all clear with visas, but those who lost their passports abroad are suspected of losing them deliberately to conceal expired visas. Border guards fine such passengers and put them on a blacklist of those who will be denied entrance to the Schengen zone for years. But why did they threaten the bus company to annul its license? As a result, Lviv-Inturtrans had to refuse passengers whose documents were likely to attract border guards’ attention. Of course, the company sustained losses. According to Popovych, the paradox is that if Ukrainians with expired visas return by air, they are taken off the flight, but it’s never delayed and the air company has no trouble at all.

Lviv-Inturtrans has appealed to Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the European Union Shpek, Ambassador to Germany Ponomarenko, Foreign Minister Zlenko, Transport Minister Pustovoitenko, and wherever else they could think of. The envoys responded that Shpek broached the problem during a meeting with EU representatives; Ponomarenko handed over the company’s complaint to the German border guard service but said that it would be better to appeal to the Ukrainian Transport Minister. Manager Vasyl Halushka says that the Germans have not reacted in any way. And on the whole, as Ukrainian diplomats admit in private, the situation obviously contradicts declarations of support for Ukraine’s European aspirations.