EU partially allows Bulgaria and Romania into Schengen area

EU governments have agreed to a partial accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the bloc’s border-free Schengen area from March 31 2024, a long-delayed move that had increased tensions among capitals.

“I am very pleased that in 2024 air and maritime . . . controls between Bulgaria and Romania and the other Schengen countries will become a thing of the past, after 12 years of negotiations,” said Spanish interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska Gómez, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

On March 31, the same day that international summer flight schedules kick in, air travellers to and from Romania and Bulgaria will no longer be required to show their passports and will depart from the same Schengen terminals as other EU countries. The same provision will be valid for passengers on ferries and other boats.

“Our adoption in Schengen for the air and sea borders was a matter of restored trust, a matter of security and a matter of European integration,” said Kiril Petkov, leader of Bulgaria’s ruling pro-European We Continue the Change party. “Europe is giving us credit for all three.”

European Council president Charles Michel said land borders would also be lifted at some point in the future.

“A long-awaited step for Romanian and Bulgarian citizens to enjoy easier freedom of movement with the perspective of land transport to come,” Michel wrote on social media platform X.

While airports and seaports are a welcome first step, land borders remain the more substantial decision for a region that has long suffered from extended road and rail border waiting times.

After “years of failures and humiliation . . . the process is now irreversible”, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu posted on Facebook, adding that talks on land borders will continue next year.

Speaking to media on Thursday, Bulgarian finance minister Assen Vassilev said that “we won’t feel the full effect for the Bulgarian economy until the land borders are opened” and vowed to “chase this goal extremely stubbornly and extremely hard”.

Austria, which has long held up the two countries’ Schengen accession, remains opposed to lifting checks at land frontiers after a surge in irregular migration this year.

Under a deal struck earlier this month, Vienna lifted its veto to a first step of Schengen membership provided Bucharest and Sofia do more to stop migrants at their borders.

Both have agreed beef up external border controls, seen as especially important on Bulgaria’s southern frontier.

“Bulgaria will receive significant financial support from the European Commission, as well as operational and technical assistance . . . along the Bulgarian-Turkish and Bulgarian-Serbian borders,” the Bulgarian government noted in a statement.

But with Austrian parliamentary elections looming in autumn and an anti-immigrant far-right party polling ahead of the ruling coalition, the government will be hard-pressed to approve the two countries’ full Schengen membership next year.

Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007 and met Schengen entry criteria by 2010, but their membership in the border-free area was held up due to concerns about graft and, later, the perception that they would do little to stop migrants. The Netherlands had also opposed the move for years but lifted its veto to the first stage of accession when Austria relented.

Croatia, which joined the EU six years after Romania and Bulgaria, was allowed to become a full Schengen member in January 2022, a decision that angered the governments in Sofia and Bucharest.

Amping up the pressure, Romania this year threatened to sue Vienna for several billion euros and told Austrian energy company OMV that a joint gas drilling project in the Black Sea would suffer delays unless Schengen moved forward.

Bulgaria, meanwhile, introduced a punitive transit tax on Russian gas crossing its territory, some of which end up in Austria. But Sofia was forced to scrap the levy after Hungary threatened to veto its Schengen accession.

Additional reporting by Paola Tamma in Brussels