With headlines like "EU completely closes its doors to Turkey" and "New travel regime starts from 2025" Turkish media are commenting on the impact that the expected accession to Schengen and the land borders of Bulgaria and Romania will have on the movement of Turks from January 1, BTA reports.
V. "Expired" describes this as "bad news for those wishing to visit the EU".
The publication reminds that, despite their membership in the EU, Bulgaria and Romania have so far been subject to border control, but this is expected to change from the beginning of next year.
"The EU is preparing to introduce new restrictive steps in its visa policy towards Turkish citizens,", the newspaper also wrote, adding that in recent years, the rejection of visa applications by Turkish citizens "has reached record levels" .
"Expired" points out that at the last meeting of the year of the European Commission last week, the "travel limits" were confirmed, and Turkey was left out of them.
"Preventing the growing illegal migration through the Balkan countries to the EU was a main point of the meeting. In connection with this, it was decided that Bulgaria should take additional measures to protect its border with Turkey", notes the newspaper, according to which it can be expected that "steps to increase the existing travel restrictions for Turkish citizens in the EU countries will generate new tensions in EU-Turkey relations".
"EU countries completely close the doors to Turkey", the electronic edition "MediaRadar" wrote in a headline, adding that "in recent years, EU countries have moved to radical changes in terms of their visa policy" , and now they are "preparing to implement new restrictive measures against Turkish citizens". This publication also states that visa refusals to Turks have "risen to historically high levels".
"The European Commission will take new security measures to prevent illegal migration in the Balkans, especially at the Bulgarian-Turkish border,"Gazete Gercek" also informs.
"From January 1, 2025. passport control for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens will be terminated and these two countries will be granted the right to free movement", this publication states and adds that, in order to prevent illegal migration, it was decided to take additional measures to strengthen border security of Bulgaria with Turkey.