Green card for entrance to these three countries to be removed

Serbs will no longer have to buy green cards to enter North Macedonia, Moldova and Albania. This cost for the citizens of Serbia, but also the citizens of other CEFTA members, should be removed, Zdravko Ilic, the expert for service trade at the CEFTA Secretariat in Brussels, says for Kurir.

Serbia has used its role as the presiding country of the CEFTA, which also consists of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Moldova and Montenegro, and when this proposition is adopted, it will be a big result of Serbia’s presiding.

At the moment, the possession of a green insurance card is mandatory when entering the territories of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Israel, Iran, Tunisia and Morocco as well.

– Our plan is to remove the administrative costs for the green card in the region for all our citizens when entering, for example, North Macedonia, in the next two years. Although they already have a paid insurance on their car, they still have to set aside a certain amount of money. Moreover, you’re not paying for any kind of insurance, you’re paying for a confirmation that you have insurance – our interviewee points out.

Ilic explains that, if you are traveling, for example, to Iceland through Hungary, nobody is going to request you to have a green card, but if you want to have a seaside holiday in Greece, you can’t pass through North Macedonia without this document:

– We made a plan and put it on the table. We hope that it will be adopted. We have given a two-year deadline, but I believe that it could happen sooner. In principle, everything has been agreed, and at the upcoming ministerial meeting in December, everything should be officially confirmed.

Everything began in Sofia in 2020 and the removal of the green card was not a proposition of the Secretariat, but one of the governments of a CEFTA member-country.

– We then analyzed the situation and talked with the European association of vehicle insurance about how this problem could be solved. In Serbia, it’s part of the registration process, but that’s not the case with all countries. There are parties where a registered car does not automatically mean an insured car. Their systems simply don’t work that way – says Ilic.

The proposition, our interviewee claims, has been agreed in the form of a recommendation of the Joint Board of the CEFTA.

CEFTA

CEFTA Secretariat Brussels

Zdravko Ilić

green card

removal of green card

Preševo border crossing