site.btaInterior Minister Stoyanov Sees No Reasonable Obstacle for Bulgaria’s Schengen Accession by Year’s End

"I do not see any reasonable obstacle for Bulgaria not to be accepted into Schengen by the end of this year," Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov told Bulgarian journalists in Luxembourg, where he participated in the meeting of his EU colleagues.

He noted the European Commission's report, which notes the progress made by Bulgaria and Romania in implementing the project to further strengthen the European external border. "The assessment is extremely high for us and is yet another proof that we are moving in the right direction," Stoyanov said. "I assume that this will once again be a strong trump card in our hands, through which we will be able to achieve what we all want - to be accepted into Schengen by the end of this calendar year," the Minister added.

"We are in a very active dialogue with Austria, we are about to have a key visit of Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov to Vienna, we will present what we have achieved so far, we will announce the progress," he commented on the occasion of Austria's resistance to Bulgaria's and Romania's accession to Schengen. Stoyanov also said that in November Bulgaria is expecting a visit by representatives of the Netherlands, which have also not yet expressed support for Sofia and Bucharest joining the border-free area.

Stoyanov added that also in November a visit by representatives of Turkiye is due in Bulgaria, related to joint actions to prevent illegal migration. 

In his words, the new leadership of the Interior Ministry is achieving the set goals and the number of illegal migrants allowed to cross the Turkish border has significantly decreased. There were days in July-August when they reached up to 1,500 per day, for the last 24 hours they are 440, he explained. "We have also reduced the number of detentions inside the country and at the Bulgarian-Serbian border," the Minister added.

He explained that so far most migrants in Bulgaria come from Syria and Afghanistan, but an increase in the number of arrivals from Morocco is also beginning to be noticed. In his words, Bulgaria is also performing well when it comes to the return of migrants who have no reason to stay in the EU. He said that there was a risk of a migration flow from Gaza following the events there and in Israel, but that there were no signs of that so far.