Romania and Bulgaria announced that they had reached an agreement with Austria to benefit from free movement in the Schengen area at maritime and air levels, with the question of land borders being postponed until later.
“After 13 years, Romania will finally join Schengen! We have a political agreement on this!“, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu wrote on Facebook on Wednesday evening.
The Romanian Ministry of the Interior also declared in a press release that a “political agreement” was reached between the three countries on the extension of the zone “to the Romanian and Bulgarian air and maritime borders” from March 2024 “.
For his part, Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov greeted journalists on Thursday a “success for Bulgaria” by confirming the obtaining of an “agreement in principle with Austria”.
Austria, which vetoed the entry of the two countries a year ago, complained of supporting, in the indifference of Brussels, disproportionate illegal immigration linked to external Schengen borders that were too poorly protected.
But at the beginning of December she put forward the idea of ​​what she called “Air Schengen”, saying she was ready to accept a relaxation of the rules which govern air traffic for Bulgaria and Romania, if Brussels strengthened the external borders of the EU.
On Thursday, Vienna made a point of recalling that opening the European maritime and air space to these two countries did not constitute full membership in the Schengen area and did not bring forward an implementation timetable.
“Schengen Air means that passengers from Romania and Bulgaria will no longer have” to submit to passport control other than that of the airline at the boarding gate, the Austrian Ministry of the Interior explained to AFP.
But “there are currently no negotiations on membership” strictly speaking and therefore “no date” for putting it into practice, he clarified.
Romania and Bulgaria, members of the EU since 2007, were rejected by Austria at the end of 2022 from this vast area within which more than 400 million people can travel freely without internal border controls.
Created in 1985, it includes 23 of the 27 EU member countries as well as their associated neighbors Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
