Little chance for Bulgaria and Romania to join Schengen
Published: Sunday, Dec 3rd 2023, 13:20
Back to Live Feed
Bulgaria and Romania have fulfilled the conditions for joining the Schengen area for over a year. On Tuesday, Schengen enlargement will be a provisional item on the agenda of the EU interior ministers. However, the chances of the two countries joining Schengen are slim, as some EU countries are against it. Not so Switzerland: it is in favor of the Schengen expansion.
Vienna had already spoken out against the Schengen accession of the two countries a year ago. This opinion has not changed since then: At the last EU meeting of the 27 EU ambassadors, Austria once again declared that it could not agree to Schengen enlargement.
However, Romania and Bulgaria are calling for the issue to remain on the agenda of EU interior ministers in the hope that Austria could be persuaded to rethink its position.
But the chances are slim. In addition to Vienna, the Netherlands also rejected the Schengen expansion a year ago.
An EU diplomat told the Keystone-SDA news agency that the country had recently shown itself to be constructive. But the question is how far The Hague can or wants to go. After all, the right-wing populist Geert Wilders received the most votes in the national elections in mid-November, and he is against Schengen expansion.
However, Austria's vote against would be enough, as the ministers must decide unanimously on Schengen enlargement.
Shorter EU external border
Switzerland, which is associated with Schengen, is in favor of Bulgaria and Romania joining Schengen. Christine Schraner Burgener, State Secretary at the State Secretariat for Migration (Seco), said a year ago in Brussels that Switzerland supported the two countries. One of the reasons she gave for this was that Schengen enlargement could reduce the EU's external border.
Seven borders currently have to be controlled in south-eastern Europe: Hungary-Romania, Romania-Bulgaria, Romania-Serbia, Bulgaria-Serbia, Bulgaria-North Macedonia, Bulgaria-Greece and Bulgaria-Turkey.
With a Schengen expansion, three of the seven borders would become internal Schengen borders and would therefore no longer have to be systematically controlled - namely those between Hungary and Romania, Romania and Bulgaria and Bulgaria and Greece. Only the border controls with non-EU states would remain in place. This would free up capacities that could be used elsewhere.
Individual membership unlikely
As there were various reservations about Bulgaria and Romania last year, it was briefly considered whether the two countries could be admitted to the Schengen area separately. However, this was quickly discarded. Asked whether this discussion could arise again, the EU diplomat replied in the negative.
There is no question of treating Romania and Bulgaria separately, she said. If only one of the two countries were allowed into the Schengen area, there would be a Schengen border between Romania and Bulgaria. However, this border is not equipped for this, explained the EU diplomat. It would take some technical effort to make a border "Schengen-ready".
The EU diplomat went on to say that it was not yet certain whether this point would even remain on the agenda of the interior ministers. The prospects of Bulgaria and Romania joining the Schengen area before the end of this year are therefore looking bleak.
©Keystone/SDA
English 
German 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic