site.btaBorder Police Chief Zlatanov: Bulgaria Hopes to Become Full Schengen Member Soon

Sofia is hosting a meeting of border police chiefs of the Salzburg Forum countries, the Chief Directorate Border Police said on Thursday.

Opening the meeting, Bulgarian Border Police chief Anton Zlatanov said that Thursday's event within the framework of the Bulgarian Presidency of the Salzburg Forum is a follow-up to a ministerial meeting held on 24 October, which set the common tone in discussing the leading priority topics, which are being built upon today from a professional perspective.

Zlatanov underscored that over the past year Bulgaria has made significant changes in the organization of the protection of EU’s external borders, has taken measures to increase human resources and technical support, and has significantly stepped up operational cooperation with neighbouring countries in countering migrant smuggling.

"The Bulgarian state invests huge resources in the protection of the Bulgarian-Turkish border. At the same time, we have absorbed EU money, so all surveillance systems are working. At the end of last month, a public procurement procedure for the construction of video surveillance along the last 100 km of the Bulgarian-Turkish border was completed. All these actions have led to a significant reduction in migration pressure towards our country and, therefore, towards Europe. If the Bulgarian border police had not prevented more than 180 000 attempts at illegal crossing last year, the statistics in European countries would have been different, Commissioner Zlatanov said.

The meeting was attended by the heads of the border police services of Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Croatia - members of the Salzburg Forum, as well as leading representatives of Serbia and Kosovo. They discussed countering migrant trafficking along the respective migration routes in Southeastern Europe. The participants agreed that they should exchange information on new trends, strengthen operational cooperation and coordinate their efforts in order to achieve the shared goals.

Later in the day, the representatives of the delegations will get acquainted with the work of the border police at Kalotina on the Bulgarian-Serbian border.

The Salzburg Forum is an informal initiative for security cooperation between a group of EU member states, established in 2001 at the initiative of Austria. Currently, nine Central and Eastern European countries participate in the forum - Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Bulgaria joined in 2005, immediately after the signing of the EU Accession Treaty.