Bulgaria and Romania are once again one step closer to becoming full Schengen members - Minister of the Interior Sándor Pintér stated on Friday at the multilateral press conference of the Minister of the Interior in Budapest, which was attended by Gerhard Karner of Austria, Atanas Ilkov of Bulgaria and Cătalin Predoiu of the Interior, and Ylva Johansson of the EU sure.

Today, we are convinced that Bulgaria and Romania have made significant efforts towards full Schengen membership - Minister of the Interior Sándor Pintér announced today at the multilateral press conference of the Ministers of the Interior, adding: to complete the process, they must put together a joint package that ensures and increases the European Union and the two candidates member country's security.

The package will be finalized on December 11-12. It is worth noting: already 13 years ago, the European Commission qualified Bulgaria and Romania as suitable to join the area without internal border guards, but the governments of Austria and the Netherlands blocked the decision in 2022. Last year, it was possible to reach an agreement that from the end of March this year, air and water crossings will no longer be controlled due to the Schengen border, but not at land crossings.

Sándor Pintér highlighted:

Friday's hearing was extremely difficult, because many issues had to be settled, and "we came one step closer to membership".

One part of the final decision is that we jointly set up a separate contingent on the Turkish-Bulgarian border, with the participation of at least 100 border police. Sándor Pintér said that Hungary not only contributes to the full deployment of the 100 border police, but also provides them with appropriate technical equipment so that the Bulgarian-Turkish border can be effectively protected. It is clear that there is now an opportunity to close this issue by December 31 this year

- stated the Minister of the Interior. Both Bulgaria and Romania have made progress in fulfilling the conditions for joining the Schengen area, so their January accession is a realistic goal, stated Ylva Johansson, the Commissioner responsible for internal affairs of the European Union.

The Commissioner congratulated Sándor Pintér, Minister of the Interior, and said: "this very successful meeting in Budapest is also largely due to his personal commitment". He added that as a result of the efforts and cooperation of the other countries involved in the issue, European border protection is working better and better, for which the European Union wishes to provide additional assistance.

We hope that the agreement will enable a positive decision this year

Romanian Interior Minister Cătalin Predoiu thought.

According to him, this is also the goal of his Austrian colleague, and as he said, in Budapest "we crossed a very important border".

Austria and Europe will become safer, and the country will achieve its goal with the package

Austrian Minister of the Interior Gerhard Karner stated.

It is a big task to manage migration, the Bulgarian-Turkish border is one of the most important in this, but a lot of resources have been spent on strengthening control and illegal migration has decreased by 70 percent

- said Bulgarian Minister of the Interior Atanas Ilkov.

The Schengen Agreement is part of the first and third pillars of the European Union (EU), which primarily means the abolition of internal border control and joint control of external borders. Not all EU countries are members of the convention, and there are also non-EU members. Not all signatory member states apply the convention. The totality of the applying countries is also called the Schengen zone or the Schengen area.

Members of the convention

• 1995: Belgium, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Portugal, Spain

• 1997: Italy, Austria

• 2000: Greece

• 2001: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden

• 2007: Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia

• 2008: Switzerland

• 2011: Liechtenstein

• 2023: Croatia

P.S

Featured image: Romanian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Catalin Predoiu, EU Commissioner for the Interior Ylva Johansson, Interior Minister Sándor Pintér, Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner and Bulgarian Interior Minister Atanas Ilkov (bj) at the press conference after the five-party meeting of interior ministers in Budapest, at the Ministry of the Interior on November 22, 2024 . MTI/Tibor Illyés