President Rumen Radev thanked Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte for The Hague's decision on Schengen. Radev wrote the following in a post on the X social network, formerly known as Twitter: "Appreciation to Prime Minister Mark Rutte for fulfilling his promise on Schengen."
Earlier on Friday, Reuters and the Dutch ANP news agency quoted the Dutch Justice Ministry as saying that the Netherlands agreed to Bulgaria joining the Schengen area.
On Thursday, President Radev said that he expects the Netherlands to announce full support for Bulgaria and Romania for Schengen in the near future.
Bulgaria has fulfilled all the conditions for joining Schengen since 2011, Radev said. "We have seen that it is difficult to change the fact that some countries solve their own internal political problems and this is a fact that we have to take into account, but we should do our best to remove these barriers," the President said.
"What I received as a personal assurance during numerous talks with Prime Minister Mark Rutte was only one thing - the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism is lifted and the Netherlands will fully support Bulgaria's Schengen membership without any restrictions," Radev said, adding that he is convinced that Prime Minister Rutte will respect this.
Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov told journalists in Brussels earlier in the day that Bulgaria expects the Parliament of the Netherlands to lift the veto on Schengen enlargement into Bulgaria and Romania in the coming days.
The Dutch government had a meeting on Friday and a decision about Schengen enlargement will be submitted to the legislature for a final sanctions, Denkov explained. He expects that to happen next week, if all things go as planned.
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