Bulgaria and Romania belong fully to the Schengen area.
Removing internal controls at land borders is the last hurdle.
I welcome the positive outcome of informal discussions in Budapest today.
@EUCouncil formal decision is next.
Let 2025 see Schengen become stronger. pic.twitter.com/zHJrg9HzFw
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) November 22, 2024
On 22 November in Budapest, the interior ministers of Bulgaria, Romania and Austria signed a declaration on the full accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area.
The Hungarian presidency of the Council of the EU posted on X: “BREAKING! Interior ministers of Austria, Bulgaria and Romania signed a joint agreement in Budapest for Bulgaria and Romania to join the Schengen Area”.
EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, stated:
“This is a great moment. I am in Budapest where we have finalised a meeting with the interior ministers of Hungary, Austria, Romania and Bulgaria, where they agreed to have a decision to lift also the control on the land borders at the next JHA Council in December, and hopefully from the first of January. This is a great day to achieve the full freedom for the citizens of Bulgaria and Romania in the Schengen area and I’m very happy today.”
The citizens of Romania and Bulgaria belong to Schengen and deserve to fully benefit from Schengen freedoms.
Today we took an important step towards a positive Council decision next month; pic.twitter.com/znIr75Pop3
— Ylva Johansson (@YlvaJohansson) November 22, 2024
The final decision is due on the occasion of the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 11 December, when Romania and Bulgaria are officially invited to join Schengen with land borders.
“Romania and Bulgaria can fully join the European Union’s Schengen area with open borders from January 2025, Hungarian Interior Minister Sándor Pintér said today,” Reuters quoted him saying.
‼️ Read the full text of today’s joint Hungarian-Austrian-Romanian-Bulgarian declaration agreed in Budapest. This milestone sets the stage for the next step: the @EUCouncil decision on the full accession of Bulgaria and Romania to Schengen.#HU24EU
🇭🇺🇪🇺 pic.twitter.com/dzpogr3Y67
— Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU 2024 (@HU24EU) November 22, 2024
EU and NATO members, Romania and Bulgaria entered the 29-country Schengen area by air and sea in March 2024 after reaching a partial agreement with Austria. Vienna initially opposed their joining, saying illegal immigration was still too high and that the two countries needed to do more to prevent it.
Negotiations for land entry continued throughout 2024.
For Romania and Bulgaria, land borders are a major bottleneck. According to the Romanian Union of Truck Hauliers, drivers usually wait eight to 16 hours at the border with Hungary, and from 20 to 30 hours at the Bulgarian border, with peaks of three days. Similarly, in Bulgaria, hauliers queue at the border with Greece and Romania. Evaluations have been made in terms of impact on the environment, and they are not reassuring, to say the least.
Romania believes the country loses €10 billion a year because it is not a full member of Schengen. For the same reason Bulgaria, three times smaller in terms of population, believes its economy lost €1 billion last year.
The news from Budapest is expected to play in the hands of Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who is a candidate in Sunday’s presidential elections. His main opponent, George Simion, is a far-right populist who dreams of restoring Romania’s pre-World War Two borders.
Full Schengen membership also means that for the first time in history, Greece will also be linked by land to the rest of the Schengen area.
The Brief – EU’s three biggest islands
The EU’s biggest islands, according to geography, are Ireland, with 84 thousand square kilometres, Sicily (25,000 sq. km), and Sardinia (24,000 sq. km). But it can be argued that the EU’s biggest islands are three other, much bigger territories.
[Edited by Rajnish Singh]
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Publish date : 2024-11-22 05:35:00
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