The newly appointed Ambassador of the EU to Türkiye, Thomas Ossowski, has raised concerns about the difficulties that Turkish nationals continue to face when wanting to obtain a Schengen visa.
While there are some factors that lead to these difficulties, Ambassador Ossowski specifically pointed out some tourism agencies, which, according to him, are selling fake Schengen visa appointments to Turkish nationals, Schengen.News reports.
As Ambassador Ossowski said in an interview with Hurriyet, a number of tourism agencies are making money by selling these appointments, which are free of charge.
Worried about the situation and calling the blocking of appointments by tourism agencies a fraudulent practice, Ambassador Ossowski said that legitimate applicants are unable to secure visa appointments. The same stressed that such practices from the tourism agencies are contributing to delays in the visa process.
Some tourism agencies are making money by selling fake appointments. Because they block many appointments, normal applicants have trouble finding appointments.
At the same time, Ambassador Ossowski emphasised that he witnessed a tourism agency offering a Schengen visa for €500 and said that the embassies are also receiving a high number of fake documents, leading to increased denials.
I recently saw a tourism agency offering a Schengen visa for 500 Euros. A lot of fake documents are also coming in.
Ambassador Ossowski has already informed the Turkish authorities about these fraudulent practices, but it is yet to be seen what measures will be taken by both the Turkish government and EU embassies.
EU Actively Working With Türkiye to Combat Fraudulent Activities
In addition to the above-mentioned, Ambassador Ossowski highlighted that the EU is actively working together with Türkiye to combat fraudulent activities in an effort to ensure a transparent and fair process for all nationals of the country wanting to obtain a visa to travel to the Schengen Area, Türkiye Today explains.
Türkiye is the second largest recipient of Schengen visas after China. We are strongly looking for ways to solve this problem.
Despite the issues pointed out, Ambassador Ossowski said that one out of every ten Schengen visas in the world is issued to Turkish passport holders. As for the visa liberalisation matter, he said that more work needs to be done before Türkiye reaches a visa-free travel agreement with the EU.
I would like to say that one out of every ten Schengen visas in the world is issued to Türkiye. But the other point is that if Türkiye met the criteria like other countries, it could have already had visa liberalisation.
Statistics provided by SchengenVisaInfo show that in 2023, Turkish nationals were issued a total of 867,646 Schengen visas, ranking as the nationality with the second-highest number of visas granted.
