EU expands open-border zone

The European Council has confirmed it will lift land border controls with Bulgaria and Romania next month, making the two nations full members of the bloc’s Schengen free travel area. Their accession to the zone, delayed by concerns over illegal immigration, will come 18 years after Sofia and Bucharest joined the EU.

Land border checks between the countries and other Schengen states, between Bulgaria and Greece, and Romania and Hungary respectively, will be removed as of January 1, the European Council said in a statement on Thursday, praising the “historic moment.”

“This step will benefit not only Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, but also the EU as a whole,” relayed the Hungarian presidency of the bloc.

Romania’s Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has stateds that “Schengen membership has been a strategic objective for our country,”  and that Bucharest would “continue to act responsibly to protect and strengthen the EU’s external borders” in order to manage illegal migration.

The two countries, both NATO members, joined the EU in 2007, but their admission to the Schengen zone was postponed pending the resolution of several issues, including corruption. The process was put on hold amid the European refugee crisis in 2015.

Austria blocked Bulgarian and Romanian attempt to join the Schengen zone in 2022, arguing that too many refugees were already reaching the country via the Western Balkans route.

The two Balkan nations are on major routes for the transshipment of illegal arms as well as for drug and human trafficking, noted Reuters.

In March, Austria agreed to the partial admission of Bulgaria and Romania to the zone; air and maritime border checks were lifted. Land restrictions, however, remained in place.

Austria's Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said in November that Vienna had been able to achieve significant improvements in border protection, and the illegal migrant arrival numbers via Romania and Bulgaria “have fallen massively.”

The European Council decided on December 10 that the two countries meet the necessary requirements for full Schengen accession.

Created in 1985, the Schengen zone is the world’s biggest area without internal border controls. It is comprised of 29 members – 25 of the 27 European Union member states plus Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

Romania made headlines recently after the country’s Constitutional Court annulled the results of the first round of its presidential election. The vote, held on December 1, saw independent candidate Calin Georgescu, a critic of both NATO and the EU, beat liberal leftist candidate Elena Lasconi.

The results were annulled due to “irregularities” and amid accusations that Russia had assisted Georgescu’s campaign. Moscow dismissed the claims as “absolutely groundless.”

A rerun of the first round will be held at a later date.