Romanians are coming home for Easter
Checkpoints on the Romanian borders are getting crowded, as many of the Romanians working abroad are coming home for the Orthodox Easter.
Daniela Budu, 23.04.2019, 13:09
Just like every year around the Easter holiday, the Romanians living abroad are returning to their home country to celebrate with their friends and relatives. According to the Border Police, over the past few hours alone around 50,000 vehicles and 200,000 people, Romanians and foreigners, have crossed the Romanian borders, of which around 90,000 people and 20,000 vehicles entered the country. The number of people coming into Romania through the Nadlac II checkpoint, the busiest on Romania’s border with Hungary, has tripled.
The Hungarian police are also expecting a rise in road traffic these days, accompanied by an increase in waiting times at the borders with Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. On certain days and within certain periods of time, restrictions will be in place in Hungary with respect to heavy weight vehicles, and the authorities expect trucks to queue in checkpoints, particularly considering that heavy weight traffic will be once again restricted between Saturday and Monday night.
All Romanian checkpoints will remain crowded in the days to come, and the Romanian Border Police announces that the number of staff on duty will be increased and that all border crossing units will work at full capacity.
As for the border with the Republic of Moldova, the customs authorities in the 2 countries have agreed on a set of measures to streamline crossing during the Easter holidays. The plan includes additional personnel in customs offices, the opening of all lanes and coordination with the local Border Police units. In order to ensure efficient information exchange, the action plan also nominates contact persons to be part of joint risk analysis groups, in order to make border checks more efficient.
An online app displaying “Average Waiting Times in checkpoints open for international traffic” is available on the Romanian Border Police home page, www.politiadefrontiera.ro. The app lists the available checkpoints ranked by traffic and waiting times, which are updated in real time to enable users to reconfigure their routes.
All these problems can, however, be avoided if travellers choose to come home by plane—an option that an increasing number of Romanians are resorting to, every year.
