The European Union has cleared Bulgaria and Romania to become full members of the borderless Schengen zone from the start of next year, according to officials.
Hungarian Minister of the Interior Sandor Pinter, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, heralded the accession of the two countries as a “historic moment” at a gathering of ministers on Thursday.
The decision comes after a 13-year journey to accession for the two EU and NATO members, who were finally cleared for entry after Austria agreed to drop its veto, which it had previously wielded because of concerns about undocumented immigration.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis called accession a “natural and necessary step” that will significantly reduce waiting times at borders, lower logistical costs for businesses and raise attractiveness to foreign investors.
“Schengen membership has been a strategic objective for our country,” he said in a statement. “Over time, there have been numerous obstacles, despite Romania’s technical readiness to meet Schengen standards for many years.”
In March, the two countries had been granted partial admission to Schengen, with air and maritime border checks between the two countries and the other 27 countries in the travel zone lifted, but land restrictions remained in place.
Austria dropped its remaining objections after the two countries signed a “border protection package” agreement in Budapest.
The agreement foresees the joint deployment of border guards to the Bulgarian-Turkish border and temporary border controls on land routes for an initial period of six months, according to Austrian interior minister Gerhard Karner.
Karner said on Monday that his country’s demands on tackling undocumented immigration had led to a fall in the number of migrants intercepted near Austria’s border with Hungary.
He claimed that the reduction would not have happened without the veto on Romanian and Bulgarian membership, citing a figure of 70,000 interceptions in the year to October last year, compared with only 4,000 in the same period this year.
Created in 1985, the Schengen zone now comprises 29 members – 25 of the 27 European Union member states plus Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
It is the world’s biggest area without internal border controls, where more than 400 million people can travel freely inside the zone.
As the two countries join the Schengen travel-free zone, it transpired that 54 percent of Brexit voters in Britain were suffering buyer’s remorse and would now accept a return to full free movement in exchange for access to the EU single market.
The findings were contained in a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations, which concluded “the time is ripe for a reassessment of EU-UK relations”.
