Romania, Bulgaria become 1 January full members of the Schengen zone

After 13 years of being in the vestibule of the Segek Treaty, she and she become full members on 1 January. Romania and Bulgaria were already ‘one-legged’ in Schengen, since checks at airports and ports were abolished in March 2024. CORVERSE In mid-December they finally received the ‘green light’ from their European partners by obtaining the same privileges for their land borders. Celebratory events are scheduled at various border crossings just before the beginning of the new year, at midnight tonight. This is the end of a long wait for the two former communist countries, one of the poorest in the EU. They met the technical criteria since 2011 but “every time, member countries expressed objections,” analyst Valentin Naumescu recalled. CORVERSE Over the years, this problem became “a source of disappointment, which the anti-European parties were exploiting to denounce Romania’s unfair treatment,” he explained, bringing as an example the recent presidential election (in the meantime cancelled) in which an far-right candidate emerged unexpectedly. With the entry into the Schengen area “the feeling that we are second-class citizens is also extinguished,” the analyst appreciated. In both countries, political leaders spoke of a “historic decision”, stressing that this was a key objective since Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007. In the Schengen area today, 25 of the 27 EU member countries and their associated neighbours, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein are joined. More than 400 million people can move freely without being tested. Romania’s full membership (19 million inhabitants) and Bulgaria (6.5 million) became possible after Austria withdrew its veto. Vienna had initially accepted, last spring, the partially accession of the two countries and then prepared a “road map” for their full integration. Vienna feared that the number of asylum seekers would increase if the Schengen area was widened but now considers that the measures implemented in recent months have allowed migration flows to significantly decrease. On the basis of an agreement presented in November in Budapest, temporary checks will be carried out, for a period of six months, to minimise the possibility of changing migration routes. Controls at the Bulgarian-Turkey border, which will be the external borders of the Schengen area, will also be strengthened. The two countries expect to benefit financially from joining the Schengen area and that their GDP will increase by at least 1%. Road hauliers also do not hide their satisfaction since drivers were often forced to wait at the border even for 20 hours. “It was just a waste of time for drivers who couldn’t even rest at this time because they had to move their vehicle every 10 minutes,” commented Benjamin Lucescu, the president of Romania’s Transport Federation. In Bulgaria, the poor infrastructure situation is estimated to limit the positive consequences of full integration into the Schengen area: roads are narrow, sometimes poorly maintained, rail lines non-existent or obsolete, bridges on the Danube – on the border with Romania – few. As far as tourism is concerned, the sector’s players are based on increasing the number of travellers to neighbouring Greece. “It’s an excellent news,” said Ivailo Kirkov, 46, sales manager. “We eagerly expected full membership”. For Georgi Grkancharov, a Greek guide and professor, there is no doubt that Romanians and Bulgarians will now prefer Greece as a tourist destination. Without queues of waiting, “you go (to the road) from Sofia to Thessaloniki within four hours, as long as it takes to go to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast,” he explained.