Why Turkish drivers get professional visas and ours do not: hauliers are protesting outside the EU delegation

The question Macedonian hauliers are asking is specific and uncomfortable: why do Turkish drivers get professional visas from the European Union while Balkan drivers do not. There has been no answer for seven months, so next Monday, 31 August, from 12 to 14, they will protest outside the EU Delegation in Skopje.

The problem is called the 90-in-180 rule. A professional driver may spend a maximum of 90 days in any 180 inside the Schengen zone - the same limit that applies to any citizen on a holiday trip. A man who lives on those roads in a truck is treated as a tourist going on vacation.

Four countries, one date

The protest is not only Macedonian. On 21 August Balkan hauliers agreed on coordinated action, so on the same day there will be simultaneous protests in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. A minimum of 20 freight vehicles is announced for Skopje.

A working group meeting is scheduled in Brussels for 1 September. If no interim solution comes out of it, the next phase is announced for 14 September - a complete blockade of the border crossings, expected to last more than 10 days. That phase requires the support of at least 70 percent of hauliers.

A ten-day border blockade does not only hurt the hauliers. It hurts every consignment that moves through those crossings - which means the pressure is aimed exactly where it will be felt.

Why the comparison with Turkey stings

The association points out that the Union already has a solution, because Turkish drivers are issued professional visas. This is not a theoretical proposal - it is a mechanism that already exists and is already in use, just not for us.

That is where the argument about "a technically complex question" stops working. If the instrument is built, tested and active for one country outside the Union, then not granting it to another is not a technical matter. It is a decision.

Seven months without progress is an answer in itself. The question is whether getting Brussels' attention really requires a ten-day blockade of the border crossings, or whether that is becoming the only language understood on the other side.