Schengen/EU Mobile App Developed for Calculating Visa Free Stay

The Public Service Development Agency of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia developed Schengen/EU Mobile Application, which was presented to the target audience by the Minister of Justice Thea Tsulukiani on 27 February 2018. Apart from the PSDA management, the presentation was attended by the representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, diplomatic corps, donor organizations and students. After the presentation, the app was handed over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for further supervision.

Since the visa free travel for Georgian citizens in Schengen/EU area was enforced, the main priority of the Georgian Government has become ensuring that rules and procedures specified for visa free travel are duly observed and additional instruments having recommendatory character are developed. It’s noteworthy that with enforcing the visa free travel regulations, Georgian citizens collecting their passports and ID cards in branches of Public Service Hall, territorial units of PSDA and community centres are handed the informational leaflet on visa free travel to EU. To date, up to 800 000 leaflets have been distributed. The Ministry of Justice continues work in this direction, and for this purpose, the PSDA developed the Schengen/EU App that will help Georgian citizens to take notes of the days spent in Schengen/EU area, and calculate the remaining days. It is important to do this task swiftly in order to prevent any inadvertent violation of the 90/180 rule. The Application is simple and enables the users:

• To save the history of travel in Schengen area (including the list of specific countries);
• To calculate the number of remaining days;
• To share the visuals of specific trip or its history via social media.

The mobile App has trilingual - Georgian, English and Russian interface. It has supplementary function and serves the purpose of informing the broad population. The Schengen/EU App does not have any legal force; and has been developed in full conformity with the Law of Georgia on Personal Data Protection. The information stored in the Application is saved at user’s device. The Schengen/EU App was developed by the Public Service Development Agency for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, with support of the EU and ICMPD.

Upon presenting the Application for calculating the visa free stay, the Ministry of Justice handed the App over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, which will ensure its supervision and maintenance.

The application can be downloaded here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ge.mobility.schengenapp

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/schengen-eu-app/id1249319256