site.btaBulgaria Has Received Staunch Support for Full-fledged Schengen Membership - Interior Minister Ilkov

Speaking to Bulgarian reporters in Luxembourg on Thursday, caretaker Interior Minister Atanas Ilkov said that Bulgaria has received staunch support for a full-fledged Schengen membership. Ilkov attended a meeting of the EU Home Affairs Council.

In his words, the support for this country and Romania is a result of everything achieved and reported at Thursday’s meeting. "We hope to receive the long-awaited positive decision soon. I would not like to comment on deadlines," he added.

Ilkov said that Bulgaria and Romania’s joint activities and good bilateral cooperation were praised at the meeting. The Bulgarian Interior Minister noted that he had conferred with his Austrian counterpart, adding that Vienna has not come out with a firm stance yet. "I cannot say what that would be in the coming days," Ilkov added.

"There is no requirement that we have not fulfilled," he said in response to a BTA question. "We have done even more than what is required of us in terms of increasing the capacity of the Border Police with all the technical equipment, with all the measures to counter organized crime groups involved in illegal trafficking," Ilkov said. He added that it has been achieved through good cooperation with Romania, Austria and other European countries and the strategic cooperation with Turkiye, "which is a very important element of our work". "Turkiye is a very important partner of ours," Ilkov said. He added that additional technological equipment is to be purchased and placed on the Bulgarian-Turkish border.

Asked whether a decision on the lifting of Schengen land border controls for Bulgaria and Romania can be expected at the interior ministers’ meeting in December, Ilkov said he really hoped so. In his words, so far there is no change in the stance of the Dutch government, which supported the complete abolition of Schengen land border controls for Bulgaria and Romania last December. Austria was the only country opposed to that then, and there is no sign of change in this regard, as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose country holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union until the end of the year, made clear this week.