Schengen for Truck Drivers, Piece by Piece: A Deal With Croatia, Permits Instead of Visas With Romania, Still Talking With Bulgaria and Greece

Macedonia's professional drivers are stuck between borders, stamps and limits on entering and staying in the Schengen zone. Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski now says the state has found a solution - not one, but several different ones, deal by deal, country by country.

According to him, a bilateral agreement has been signed with Croatia, and Switzerland has since confirmed a deal as well. With Romania, it has been agreed that Macedonian drivers will be issued permits rather than visas. With Bulgaria and Greece, talks are under way so that drivers who enter and leave on the same day don't have to register at all. With "certain other countries", the minister says, negotiations are in the final phase.

The culprit: bureaucracy

Nikoloski rejects theories that the problem is part of a plan to destroy Balkan hauliers. "If this were some big plan, where the goal was to destroy the Balkan hauliers and have other hauliers take over the business, we would have seen it. There's no such thing," he said. His explanation is more mundane: a slow European bureaucratic machine that "finds it hard to make new decisions".

The minister also pointed out that the damage isn't only ours. More than 87 percent of foreign direct investment in Macedonia comes from the European Union, and those companies too, he says, can't find an alternative way to move their goods.

A patchwork instead of a solution

It's good that something is moving. But look at what the drivers are actually getting: one regime in Croatia, another in Romania, a third, maybe, towards Bulgaria and Greece - and for the rest of the Schengen countries, waiting. A driver going from Skopje to Germany passes through several countries, and each has its own rule.

Nikoloski himself admits that "there is no single complete solution". If the problem really is the bureaucracy in Brussels, why does the fix have to be hunted down in every capital separately - and how many drivers will quit the profession before the whole puzzle comes together?