Western Balkan Truckers Freeze 14 September Border Protest, but Schengen Rules Stay in Place

The Macedonian haulers' association Makam-Trans says a protest planned for 14 September — when truckers from North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro were set to jointly block border crossings into the European Union — will not go ahead.

The decision followed a meeting with representatives of several Schengen member states, held through the EU Mission in Belgrade. "This shows good will and an understanding of the consequences that disrupting the supply chain between the Western Balkans and the EU would cause," the association said, adding that all preparations for the protest have been suspended for now.

At issue is the so-called 90/180 rule, which limits how long non-Schengen nationals — including professional truck drivers — can stay inside the zone: 90 days within any 180-day window. For long-haul drivers, that often forces work stoppages mid-route. The haulers say they were promised a faster push toward a fix, tied to the EU's new visa strategy expected in the second half of 2027.

Frozen, Not Solved

Calling off the protest doesn't take the underlying problem off the table. The rule itself hasn't changed, and Macedonian freight forwarding runs largely on Corridors 8 and 10, which carry most of the country's goods traffic toward Western Europe. If the border crossings are quiet on Monday, the real question isn't whether a blockade was avoided — it's what drivers actually won at the table, and what has simply been pushed further down the road.

MKNews Hub · Macedonia · September 12, 2026