Approximately 1.4 million Romanians will visit Greece this summer

The Greek border authorities estimate that the number of Romanian tourists predicted for this summer will be approximately 1.4 million Romanian citizens, according to a press release sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) to AGERPRES.

A delegation from MAE was in the Greek Republic on May 27 and 28, where they had a series of technical meetings with representatives of Greek and Bulgarian local and regional authorities as well as with representatives of Greek employers in the hotel industry, with the purpose of finding the best solutions for facilitating access and accommodation units to Romanian tourists, in the current summer season.

During the technical discussions that took place at the Kulata-Promachonas border crossing points, wherein representatives of the National Police and Border Police from Bulgaria and Greece took part, the Romanian side presented the Bulgarian and Greek speakers with a series of objections from Romanian tourists regarding the long waiting time for crossing the border, the concern of the Romanian authorities regarding the risk of repeating large delays from previous years and assured of the Romanian side's full institutional collaboration in order to identify solutions meant to streamline the Bulgarian-Greek border traffic and reduce long waiting times.

The representatives of Bulgarian and Greek authorities specified that a series of complementary measures have already been taken, in order to eliminate sanitary restrictions, which will lead to a reduction of long waiting times for access in the Greek Republic.

Among the most important measures communicated from the Greek side are: supplementing the number of Greek Border Police for carrying out border control; increasing transit capability through the border crossing point, by establishing additional tellers; simplifying travel documents control procedures for EU citizens; a better coordination between Bulgarian and Greek border authorities for transmitting information in real time regarding the transit volume at the Romanian-Bulgarian border.

Furthermore, consultations that have taken place on this occasion created the premises to organizing for the first time, in the following period, of a Romania-Bulgaria-Greece trilateral technical meeting, with the topic of managing the flow of tourists that travel by road to the Greek Republic, through Bulgaria.