EU visas for sale in Moldova

A sample "Schengen Visa." In Chisinau, the Romanian consulate is bilking desperate Moldovans who want to enter the EU

CHISINAU (Special to Tiraspol Times) - Romania, the most corrupt country in Europe, is trading in EU Visas and plying on Moldovan 'gast-arbeiters' who are desperate to enter the European Union. That is the conclusion of a four week investigation into the visa trade in downtown Chisinau, Moldova.

A mere five months after Romania joined the European Union, alarm bells are going off in Brussels over pervading corruption in the new member-state. Based on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index, Romania has the worst score in the EU and a lower ranking than its intimate neighbor, Moldova. Corruption affects every aspect of life in Romania and spills over into its foreign affairs policy. Nowhere is this seen clearer than in Romania's recently implemented visa regime with Moldova.

Across the street from the Romanian Consulate in Chisinau, Moldova, Victoria Anghel saw a long queue in front of her. Like 600,000 other Moldovans who just months ago could cross into Romania freely, Victoria now had to apply for a visa or she would be stuck in Moldova, unable to leave.

Until 1940, Moldova was part of Romania. The two countries speak the same language and share similar ethnicities and flags. Until just a few months ago, citizens of Moldova were free to come in Romania, their old homeland. Since the beginning of the year, however, Moldovan citizens have found themselves farther than ever away from their neighbor.

The Romanian visa policy in Moldova

To apply for a visa, you first have to register for an appointment. Getting an appointment is nearly as hard as getting the visa itself.

Officially citizens can obtain a visa to Romania free of charge. All they need to do is present the necessary documents and register on the Consulate’s web site. But in an effort to make it as hard as possible for desperate Moldovans to get the free service, appointments can only be scheduled online within a seven day window. It is impossible to book an appointment for next month or whenever the next time is available.

Only a limited number of appointments are available each day - and that is only in theory. In reality, none are available, ever: All of them are permanently booked. An experiment showed that over four weeks, no single time slot in the seven-day period showed any availability.

Faced with no possibility to book online, desperate Moldovans instead create enormous queues outside the Romanian Consulate in Chisinau every day. In the crowd in front of the Consulate, the only way to have a chance of getting a visa starts with locating the guy in charge of putting you on the list. His fee is tied directly to your desperation: Going up to €40, depending on how soon someone wants to be let inside the Consulate's doors.

Rumor had it that students could apply for visas without prior registration. But Victoria Anghel, a student in the EU, was given the runaround: She first had to travel to Bucharest, in Romania, to apply for a visa from the country where she is registered as a student. Victoria has to go to Bucharest for less than twelve hours, just to apply for a student visa at another Embassy. She explained the situation at the Consulate and was told to purchase a ticket, medical insurance and book a hotel. When she returned with all the necessary documents, her petition was refused: The consulate would no longer consider her application, allegedly because Victoria wasn't planning to study in Moldova.

Victoria Anghel has a good immigration record, having traveled throughout the European Union and the United States. She has no criminal convictions, no contagious illnesses and does not belong to any terrorist group. There was no objective reason for refusal - except the need of consular workers to earn money on the side and trade on the desperation of ordinary Moldovans.

How to get a visa for the EU

Simply put, Victoria Anghel - like 600,000 fellow citizens - found out that she could not get visa to the European Union without paying off the middle-men. Romania's free-of-charge visa offer to Moldovans is a myth. Price discrimination prevails. It depends on how a potential visa applicant is dressed, how desperate she or he is, how nervous or ignorant about the procedure. Sleaze at the Romanian consulate, supported by a vast network of "greasy handed" individuals, is a sad reality.

Corruption within state borders is bad enough. But the EU exporting corruption to neighboring countries is a problem grown out of control.

Germany has suffered from the same kind of corruption. In the German Embassy in Chisinau, Moldova, the biggest queues formed in front of the German Embassy at the time of alleged corrupt practices in issuing Schengen visas. Several local employees of the German Embassy were dismissed as a result.

Victoria Anghel was not the only one who experienced difficulties in trying to get a visa to Romania. A person interviewed by your author was requested to provide a confirmation of a hotel booking. There are few hotels in Romania that are advanced enough to accept reservations online. At the applicant’s request, the consular worker provided the name of a travel agency which could help. After paying €40 at the agency, the man came back with the confirmation only to be told that it was fake.

Victoria Anghel’s advice to others is never to pay anyone offering any kind of Romanian visa services in advance or without checking with at least two or three other sources. To avoid being drawn directly into sleazy transactions with consular workers and their "agents" in the street, Anghel recommends going through an independent travel agent. Prices range from €80 to €300 with the lowest being for a short five-day single entry tourist visa.

But in Chisinau, no big travel agencies or reputable insurers are associated with the Romanian Consulate. Big agents won't handle Romanian visas at all, steering clear of the murky trade altogether. The problem is that in many cases Moldovans cannot obtain visas to certain countries in the EU (Belgium, Spain, etc.) anywhere else but in Bucharest, Romania.

See also:
» Moldova falling apart as corruption, poverty force half the country to leave
» Institutionalized kleptocracy

On the web:
» Romanian Embassy in Chisinau (official website)