Gird your loins for the hassles moving in and out of the Schengen area, dear fellow (real) Maltese citizens
Published:
January 23, 2014 at 4:18pm
This comment was posted by Mikiel:
Just tried entering Norway from Denmark, held up at passport control for 30 minutes, being asked where I got my (Maltese) passport from and being checked multiple times.
This never happened to me on previous visits to Norway. Frustrating to be treated differently now.
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It has to be emphasized Norway isn’t a member state. It’s the EU passport that’s being questioned.
Tajba Guz, issa meta titla’ ghand Reding aqbez qabza mur iggieled man-Norvegizi.
You miss the remark that this has not happened before. Could it be that Muscat’s IIP, and his reaction to international criticism, is the new element that requires greater scrutiny of Maltese/EU passports?
Norway is a member of Schengen, as are the other three EFTA states.
It’s going to be worse for me then.
I have been frisked and had my hand-luggage searched more than a couple of times while travelling to/from various European countries.
I have had my suitcase “randomly” selected for a “routine” search on leaving Heathrow for Malta with my quasi-British-looking husband, whose suitcase was not searched, unlike mine.
I have even had to endure being frisked when heavily pregnant with one child while travelling with another – who was then separately searched in her push-chair – from Rome to Malta.
Now that my children are older, I have, on the last couple occasions, been spared the frisking, only to have my fair-skinned daughter being selected for “random” frisking.
My crime? I am a true Maltese, with typical black hair and an olive complexion – Semitic colouring, if you wish. With Muscat’s new sale-of-passports scheme, it can only get worse.
It will now only get worse.
Well, what can I say? Reding did remark that there will be “consequences”.
I’ve had this happen to me in many European airports (large international ones, small regional ones, and everything in between) multiple times over the past six or seven years. Even though no one in their right mind likes the way the IIP story is playing out, and I am including myself in this group of people, I firmly believe that getting caught in the hysteria surrounding the story is not productive.
The native Maltese with a genuine Maltese passport will soon discover the reality of restricted “free” movement inside the Schengen area, throughout the European Union and beyond, for example in America. Most certainly we won’t be given any normal or “red carpet” accelerated passage as Muscat’s Malta gave to the Chinese applicant for a Muscat style passport.
All Maltese won’t continue to enjoy the smooth passage that we enjoyed up to now. ALL Malta passport holders will be subject to the delays and irritations of the special scrutiny that will become necessary to weed out those undesirables who bought an ersatz citizenship so as to masquerade as Maltese when they were really suspect foreigners with the flimsiest, if any connection, with the island.
In-Norvegizi jafuna bhala dawk li nisirqu t-tigieg.
I am a well-travelled Maltese woman. The countries where my passport has been greeted with genuine warmth are in the Arab world. Why? Because our passports are translated into Arabic. “You are welcome!” say the immigration officers in an endearing faux ami.
But elsewhere outside the EU, in particular the US and certainly before Malta became eligible for the visa waiver programme, I have routinely matched the red-alert-profile. Independent traveller, female, Arabic-looking words on her passport.
I have been met with smiles by United Airlines ground staff: “Madam, you have been randomly selected for an enhanced security check.”
I have been rudely questioned by Swiss (the airline) staff in Zurich and asked to produce my ticket at the gate.
Got grilled at Montreal.
I once had my passport stamped in London by a cross immigration officer (we were in Schengen then; he had to cancel the stamp) and he had the effrontery to complain I did not look European, when he was a Sikh South Asian.
[Daphne – Britain is not in Schengen. That’s not why your passport isn’t stamped in London: it’s because Malta and Britain are both in the European Union; Schengen has nothing to do with it.]
I will spare you the details of interrogations at Ben Gurion Airport. It could have been worse had I been named Abdilla.
My only consoling thought till then was that these perceptions were based on unfair racial profiling. And it certainly helps to have MALTA backed up by UNJONI EWROPEA on the passport front cover. Some of this has stopped since 2004.
Frankfurt airport employees would no longer ask for a visa while en route to Malta. UNJONI EWROPEA is recognisable to non-Maltese speakers.
Without wanting to sound sensationalist at all, the practical consequence of the scheme, is indeed further hardship for Malta-born Maltese at non-Schengen border controls. It was such a pleasure to travel to the US lately and report that crossing the border was a non-event.
I couldn’t afford a Maltese passport under the new scheme, and nor can the vast majority of Maltese. Life was worse for most of us in the green passport days which we have happily forgotten.
Don’t know who to thank…don’t know how to conclude this post….but probably, Ms. Reding has hit the nail on the head. While people justifiably worry about criminals and other shady applicants, the real daily impact will be on ordinary citizens.
[Daphne – You are quite right on that score.]
I was held up at the Polish border (while LEAVING Poland) by four huge Straż Graniczna officers in full tactical kit, plus sidearm and automatic weapon, gruffly asking me something in their strange lingo.
So I reminded myself that I went to a public school (I didn’t) and that my back is ramrod-straight and my upper lip is stiff (it wasn’t) and with a breezy Surrey accent I said: “Now look here old chap, I’m sure this is all a terrible mistake.”
One of them, who looked like he could wrestle an aurochs, said: “Passport!”
So, slowly lowering my trembling hands, I reached for my passport and handed them the precious document.
They looked at it suspiciously, then read the words ‘European Union’, and suddenly their whole attitude changed. They scanned it on their gizmos, and with beaming smiles they wished me “nays trip wish enjoy Poland.”
That is what the EU is all about.
Love your story, Baxxter. Hope you have the same experience once little Joey has his way. Doubt it.
I’ve already told you I will adopt you, automatic Canadian passport.
Once little Joey has his way, the Polish Straż Graniczna will read what’s written on your passport in reverse:
“No in, U European.”
The United Kingdom is not in Schengen (which is why you need to show a passport) but European Union passports do not get stamped. Mine did as I left the country for a Schengen destination.