The Sunday Telegraph had an article worth reading about the ramifactions of EU enlargement for Australian travellers to Europe. The accession of nine Eastern European countries to the EU, and to the Schengen Agreement makes it much easier for Australians to travel to those countries as a 90 day Schengen visa will be issued on arrival. However, the sting in the tail is this – because Australian travellers are still only allowed to stay in the area covered by the convention (which also includes most of Western Europe, coloured blue in the map) for ninety days in a six month period. these nine new countries are included in the same ninety days as France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, etc, the likelihood of Australian travellers wishing to exceed the total 90 days is greatly increased.
The article also observes that
An emerging problem arises from travellers booking flights themselves over the internet, and therefore being unaware of visa requirements.
Then, when they’re checking in at the airport, they discover the airline won’t carry them because their paperwork isn’t in order.
“That can obviously be a pretty big problem for the traveller, yet it happens quite frequently; it’s a pretty common occurrence,” Mr Derbyshire says.
A sage reminded to be extra careful if you’re travelling through a number of countries.
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Posted in Misc
Tagged Czech Republic, eastern europe, Estonia, europe, finland, france, germany, Hungary, italy, Latvia, lithuania, Malta, norway, Poland, portugal, scandinavia, schengen, Slovakia, Slovenia, spain, sweden, travel, vacation, visa
more uniform globally, internet searches and legal documents easier to understand and removing silent consonants in order for words to be spelt more phonetically. Oh, and ‘Portuguese officials hope the measure would advance an old ambition of getting Portuguese adopted as an official language at the UN’.
Oz Traveller 