The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will expand its consular departments in Turkiye by providing eight additional positions for consular staff and will introduce a centralized digital appointment booking system for consular services. This was announced by Foreign Minister Velislava Petrova in an interview with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) following a visit to the Consulate General of Bulgaria in Istanbul and a meeting with the Consuls General in Istanbul and Edirne – Vassil Valchev and Radoslava Kafedzhiyska. The measures are part of the Bulgarian State’s efforts to speed up the processing of applications from Turkish citizens applying for Schengen visas and are intended to address problems related to long waiting times and the heavy workload of consular departments.
“The first thing we intend to do is increase the capacity of our consular staff in Turkiye because, regardless of their willingness and hard work, the number of applications cannot continue to grow indefinitely without being subject to the natural limitations of a working day. That is why the Foreign Ministry will provide eight additional consular staff positions to be distributed among our four consular services in Turkiye (Istanbul, Ankara, Edirne and Bursa – editor’s note). This will enable us to expand our capacity to process and receive visa applications. On the other hand, what we have identified is that a major problem concerns how appointments are allocated – who gets earlier appointments and on what basis. There is room for an approach that may not be entirely transparent. Therefore, to address this problem, we will adopt an approach that other countries have also used, namely, gradually creating a centralized digital appointment booking system accessible to all types of citizens, regardless of the type of visa they are applying for. This will allow us to establish a more transparent system and allocate appointments more clearly, according to clear rules, principles and criteria, ultimately enabling people to submit applications more quickly and receive their visas sooner,” Petrova said.
The additional consular staff are expected to be appointed by the end of this year, while the new digital system is due to be introduced by the middle of next year.
During her visit to Istanbul, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister noted that the workload in the consular departments was extremely heavy and predicted an increase in the number of visa applicants, linked to trade and economic exchanges between the two countries and growing tourist interest in Bulgaria. Data from the busiest consular service, in Istanbul, showed that nearly 40,000 visa applications had been submitted over the past year.
“We have a clear understanding of how many applications can be processed with a given number of consular staff, and we can see that increasing the number of people available here to receive applications will certainly provide people with faster access,” Petrova said.
The Foreign Minister also commented on the measures taken to resolve the problem that arose at the end of October, when queues of lorries formed at the Bulgarian-Turkish border due to the rule allowing Turkish citizens to stay in the Schengen Area for up to 90 days in any 180-day period. In connection with resolving the issue, telephone conversations were held between Turkish Trade Minister Omer Bolat and Bulgarian Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev, as well as between Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev, and between Petrova and her Turkish counterpart, with a view to speeding up border crossings between the two countries.
“Finding solutions is extremely important for both countries.Turkiye is an important partner of ours and a country with which we have very active economic exchanges. Ensuring the unhindered passage of these lorries is necessary not only for us, but also for the whole of Central and Western Europe, which benefits from the products transported along these routes. Therefore, finding solutions here is important not only for the two countries, but for the whole of Europe,” the Foreign Minister stressed.
“In our discussions, we talked about what the short-term and long-term solutions should be. In the short term, what needs to happen, and what we have done, is to find a solution that will allow drivers who have spent more than 90 days in the Schengen Area, which is the permitted period under the visas they hold, to continue crossing for a certain period of time. There should be a degree of derogation to allow this traffic to be cleared and ensure unhindered passage. This is the short-term solution we agreed on. But more importantly, the long-term solution is to find a way for them to obtain the necessary visas so that they can travel through our country and, indeed, through the other Schengen countries along their route to their final destination without hindrance for a longer period of the year, because the nature of their work is not tourism. This requires coordination with the other Schengen member states and the European Commission. This is precisely the dialogue we are conducting on the Bulgarian side. We are certainly doing everything possible to assist the Turkish side, including within the framework of European Union regulations and the ongoing discussions on finding a sustainable solution,” Petrova added.
She specified that the expectation was for a long-term solution to the problem, in line with European regulations, to be clarified by the end of the year.

Foreign Ministry to Expand Its Consular Departments in Turkiye 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-11-12 05:17:00

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