site.btaBulgarian PM: Entry in Schengen by Land Will Relieve Bulgarian Citizens, Companies

Bulgaria's accession to Schengen by land will ease the burden on Bulgarian citizens and companies, caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev said on Bulgarian National Television on Friday evening. He was commenting on the news that earlier in the day, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Austria issued a joint statement regarding the full accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen area by January, including land borders.

According to Glavchev, one of the important changes will be that there will be no queues of vehicles, either passenger or heavy, at the border control checkpoints. All Bulgarian citizens will be relieved, and not only Bulgarian ones, because many of the heavy freight vehicles come from the direction of Turkiye, which travel to Romania via the two bridges over the Danube, he added.

Glavchev pointed out that decisions on possible border closures in Schengen are taken by individual countries and, in this sense, it is good that Bulgaria and Romania will be able to decide when to strengthen controls and when not.

"The border with Turkiye is an external border of the European Union, and I am glad that a long-standing idea that the EU's external border should be guarded by all Member States is slowly finding its application," the caretaker Prime Minister added. Ever since January, when our partial admission to the Schengen area by air and water took place, inspection and joint efforts on how to guard the EU's external border with Turkiye started, and we see that this is bearing fruit," he added. 

In Glavchev's words, not only Bulgaria and Romania but also the other Member States deserve a round of applause. He said that it was a joint effort that had led to a 70% drop in attempts to illegally enter Bulgaria through this border and a 46% drop in those caught entering Bulgaria in some way. Glavchev pointed out that these are objective criteria and it is with these criteria that Bulgaria has impressed its partners to have such a positive report.

People will evaluate who has done what, Glavchev added. "We cannot forget that we were technically ready for Schengen already under the third government of Boyko Borissov and back then it was already a matter of political decisions of our various partners, and we entered by air and water under the government of Nikolay Denkov, so all those who have made efforts in this direction should be congratulated," the caretaker Prime Minister added. It is now a matter of luck to whom the last step will happen, Glavchev added.