Photo from UNIAN
The Ecolines bus transportation service has refused to transport Ukrainians with biometric passports heading for Bulgaria under the visa-free regime, according to their relative Olga Lenz, who posted photo proof on Facebook on Sunday, June 25.
A female passenger with a biometric passport, which does not require an EU visa, was not allowed to get into a bus, she wrote and added a photo of a ticket with a handwritten refusal.
"Yesterday, my sister and her husband, their 12-year-old daughter and three-year-old son were unable to leave for Bulgaria for vacation. Ecolines bus tickets were bought in advance, but Anna Karpenko, the conductor, did not let them in because her daughter (at the age of 12) did not have a visa. My sister, my husband and my son have a German Schengen visa. The niece's visa expired just before the visa-free regime [was introduced on June 11]," she wrote.
Read alsoNearly 1,500 people from Russia refused entry into Ukraine in first five months"They called to the Bulgarian embassy, to the customs service – all said they could go without visa, the teenager has a biometric passport. But the conductor did not let in," she added.
Answering about EU visa-free travel, the conductor answered: "We have our own rules."
As is seen on the photo of the ticket, the cause behind the refusal is "the absence of a visa, only a biometric passport [is available]."
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has been informed about the incident. Other Facebook users confirm that Ecolines does not rule out such refusals.
"The customer service said that it is their bus attendant who decides everything. We're waiting for clarification and compensation and, I hope, for an apology from the bus company," journalist Olena Vashchenko wrote on her Facebook page, commenting on the incident.
The EU member states introduced a visa-free regime for Ukrainians from June 11, 2017.