Spain managed to go ahead with the Schengen enlargement with Bulgaria and Romania after 12 years of negotiations.
As of 31 March 2024, checks on persons at EU internal air and sea borders between Bulgaria and Romania and other Schengen countries will cease.
Schengen grows! The EU Council has decided to enlarge the Schengen area to Bulgaria and Romania. Air and maritime internal borders will be lifted in March 2024, while a decision on the lifting of land controls will be taken later, the Spanish Presidency posted on X, adding that this was the last decision under its six-month stint.
The decision was adopted unanimously after a written procedure. The Council should now take a further decision to set a date for the cancellation of checks at internal land borders, the Council said.
The Tripartite Declaration committed to discussing a date for the abolition of land border controls in 2024. The abolition of border checks for passengers travelling by air will reduce the time spent at airports, while the abolition of checks at land borders will significantly reduce waiting times for both passengers and goods.
The Bulgarian government, in turn, issued a press release saying that the Council had committed itself to work towards the cancellation of checks at land borders and “to strengthen the functioning of Schengen.”
“Separately, the European Commission undertook to support Bulgaria and Romania in the protection of the external borders of the EU. Bulgaria will receive significant financial support from the European Commission, as well as operational and technical assistance from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX) along the Bulgarian-Turkish and Bulgarian-Serbian borders,” Sofia underlines.
The Bulgarian government rejected as “disinformation” reports in recent days that Sofia had accepted an additional condition from Vienna to accept refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. On the contrary, it is committed to limiting the “secondary” movement of asylum seekers, remains committed to the Dublin Regulation and will accept asylum seekers again if their first point of entry to the EU was Bulgaria.
“Bulgaria does not and cannot accept persons for whom it is not responsible,” Sofia states.
On the other hand, Romania provided information that it lost 25 billion euros because it was prevented from joining Schengen in 2011. Bulgaria does not give specific figures, but its carriers complain of huge losses from the time spent waiting at the country’s borders with Greece and Romania.
