30.12.2023
Air and maritime internal border controls with states from the Schengen area will be lifted in the end of March 2024, as voted unanimously by the Council of the European Union late in the evening of 30 December 2023. Earlier in the day, Austria lifted its veto on the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen area while the Parliament of the Netherlands lifted its longstanding veto against Bulgaria a week before that.
The Council decision makes a commitment to work to lift checks at internal land borders within the Schengen area.
A joint trilateral declaration with Austria spells out commitments as undertaken by Bulgaria and Romania to strengthen the performance of Schengen. Separately, a declaration by the European Commission commits it to support Bulgaria and Romania in the controls at the EU’s external borders. Bulgaria will be offered tangible financial support from the European Commission, in addition to operational and logistic assistance from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX) for the Bulgarian-Turkish and Bulgarian-Serbian borders.
Contrary to disinformation disseminated in recent days, Bulgaria does not agree on additional conditions concerning refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. Bulgaria undertakes to work together with Austria and Romania to limit secondary movements in compliance with European legislation. This includes, inter alia, strict abidance by the Dublin Regulation and the taking back of persons who have been registered as international protection seekers in Bulgaria and of whom Bulgaria is to take charge. This obligation under the Dublin Regulation applies directly in each member state and has applied since 2013, and relates to the rule of the responsibility of the country that was the first point of entry into the EU. The commitment undertaken is to make cooperation stronger and faster and free it of unneeded bureaucracies. Bulgaria is not and cannot be a receiving state for persons of whom it cannot take charge.
The trilateral declaration undertakes the commitment to discuss a date for lifting of checks at internal land borders in 2024.
The Schengen area member states for which air and maritime internal border control will be lifted in March 2024, are all Schengen members as follows: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, respectively and Romania.
*As per the Dublin Regulation, asylum seekers are not free to choose the country of asylum and their applications shall be examined by the member state that is solely responsible.
