In January 2007, the SOLVIT network welcomed Bulgaria and Romania, the two new EU members. One year later, the Bulgarian and Romanian SOLVIT centres have acquired considerable experience in handling SOLVIT problems and are fully integrated in the SOLVIT network. Both centres have demonstrated their ability to defend EU rights of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens and businesses. They also have a strong commitment to solving problems encountered by other EU nationals in their countries. The main problems encountered by Bulgarian and Romanian citizens are related to recognition of professional qualifications, employment and social security rights.

A new EU residence rights directive (2004/38/EC) had to be transposed into national law by 30 April 2006. The directive replaces the system of residence permits by a simplified registration procedure for EU citizens and also covers residence cards and visa for third country family members. Since many member states were late in transposing the directive, SOLVIT centres received numerous complaints about the application of the Directive, around 80% of which were successfully solved. Most complaints were about delays in getting the residence cards and registration certificates and about the demand of additional documents for visa and residence card applications. SOLVIT centres acted as intermediaries between citizens and national authorities and helped to clarify the main provisions of the directive to ensure that citizens could make use of their new rights in practice.

Citizens Signpost Service and SOLVIT have decided to interlink their systems. If Citizens Signpost Service legal experts consider that a particular problem could be dealt with by the SOLVIT network, they advise citizens to use a new automatic transfer possibility. Via a pre-filled on-line complaint form that already contains the problem description and the legal analysis by CSS, citizens can submit their case to SOLVIT by only filling in their personal data and clicking the 'send' button.

SOLVIT puts Bulgarian to work in Luxembourg

A Bulgarian citizen with a French diploma was offered a job in a consultancy firm in Luxemburg. The company had made the necessary arrangements to obtain a work permit for its new employee. However, the procedure was taking much longer than the expected one to three months jeopardising the chances of the Bulgarian citizen to get the job. After SOLVIT's intervention, the applicant received his work permit and could start his professional career in Luxembourg.

Solved within 8 weeks.

Gives Romanian drivers free passage through Austria

A Spanish bus company legally employing several Romanian drivers maintains a regular passenger transport service between Spain and Romania. During a border check of one of the busses at the Hungarian-Austrian border, the Austrian border police prevented the bus from passing through Austria as the Romanian driver could not provide proof of residence in Spain.
The driver was unrightfully banned from driving busses in Austria for the next five years. Moreover, the bus was forced to detour through Slovenia, to the serious inconvenience of the passengers, drivers and the bus company. SOLVIT argued that the Austrian police was not entitled to impose nationality or residence requirements, let alone prevent the bus from crossing Austria. SOLVIT managed to convince Austrian authorities that the police had made a serious mistake. Austrian authorities offered their apologies for the inconveniences caused, lifted the ban on the Romanian driver, and clarified their regulations to prevent similar mistakes from happening in the future.

Solved within 11 weeks.