More than 2.3 million citizens of Moldova benefit from free visa regime in Schengen Area

15:05 | 28.04.2021 Category: Social

Chisinau, 28 April /MOLDPRES/ - Moldova today marks seven years since the abolition of the free visa regime for the short-term travels of Moldovan citizens who hold biometric passports to the Schengen Area. On the concerned period, 2, 376, 731 citizens of Moldova benefited from this regime and travelled 9,121, 544 times to EU.

According to data by the Foreign Affairs and European Integration Ministry (MAEIE), each year of enforcement of the free visa regime was characterized by an ascendant dynamic; thus, the number of beneficiaries reached 157,816 people, who travelled to the Schengen Area in 2014, who travelled to the Schengen Area in 2014 and grew up to 890,974 people in 2019. At the same time, according to the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX), as little as about 0.3-0.4 per cent of cases of refusing the entry were recorded out of the total number of cases and 0.5-0.7 per cent of cases of illegal stay.

In the context of the starting of the COVID-19 pandemic, the free movement was essentially hit. In 2020, the number of free visa regime beneficiaries decreased 2.4-fold against 2019 (from 890, 974 to 366, 254) and the number of travels – by 2.9 times (from 2, 322,787 to 793, 243). A similar situation was preserved in 2021 too; the number of travels in the first four months of this year dropped 2.2-fold against the same period of the year before precedent (from 433, 161 to 198, 060). At the same time, the rate of the cases of refusing the entry and cases of illegal stay increased disproportionally, reaching to 1.1 per cent (8,668 cases) and respectively 2.6 per cent (20,414 cases).

Twenty six out of 27 European Union member states are part of the Schengen Area (22 Schengen member states and four states candidates for Schengen – Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Romania, which enforce the Schengen rules); only Ireland represents an exception, as well as Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

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