Frontex Executive Director Hans Leijtens is paying a working visit to Bulgaria. Together with Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov, he will visit the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint on the border with Turkiye on Thursday.
The two will make a media statement and will attend the opening of a border police department in Bolyarovo.
Meeting with Minister Stoyanov on Wednesday, the Frontex Executive Director expressed firm support for the lifting of land border controls for Bulgaria.
As of March 2024, Bulgaria and Romania are joining the border-free Schengen area, starting with the lifting of controls at air and sea borders but leaving land border controls for later.
At a working meeting, Stoyanov and Leijtens highly appreciated the cooperation between Bulgaria and Frontex.
The presence of the Agency's officers at the Bulgarian-Turkish border will increase three-fold this year, which will contribute to the implementation of Bulgaria's main priority - ensuring a high level of security at one of the most sensitive and busy external borders of the EU.
According to Border Police data, in 2015 the migration pressure at the Bulgarian-Turkish border was 90,315 people, in 2022 - 164,536 and in 2023 - 180,512. In 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, the figures of illegal migrants stagnated but that was followed by a significant increase in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
In January 1-15 2023, there were 8,519 attempts to cross the Bulgarian-Turkish border illegally, while during the same period this year the like figure were 3,023. The number of people detained inside the country during the same period in 2023 was 640 and 189 this year.
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