site.btaInterior Minister Radev, EU Commissioner Avramopoulos Call for Bulgaria's and Romania's Schengen Accession

Brussels, February 21 (BTA Correspondent Nikolay Jeliazkov) - Interior Minister Valentin Radev and EU Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos called on the Council of the EU to approve Bulgaria's and Romania's Schengen accession. The two were addressing the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs during a hearing on Tuesday evening.

This issue has been waiting to be resolved for a very long time and the delay is unprecedented, said Radev, urging for a quick and just solution. He noted that the migration pressure has caused great tension to Schengen. It would be hard to imagine Europe today without Schengen. The Bulgarian Presidency of the EU Council will invest all of its energy and efforts to find a solution, the Interior Minister said.

Avramopoulos noted that the movement of people will only increase with time and must be managed. Today's young people take the lifting of borders for granted, while in the past they have caused disputes, clashes and wars. The EU Commissioner called for the Schengen topic not to be used in internal political talk.

He noted that if the EU wants to have such border control as in the US and Canada, then it would have to invest 14 per cent of its budget in this. Avramopoulos also added that the European Commission will propose universal rules pertaining to the work of national border control services in the EU.