Negotiations with Austria continue
The Netherlands has agreed to let Bulgaria join Schengen, ending the country’s long-standing opposition to the move. The news was released by the Dutch Ministry of Justice on Friday.
A statement from the department said that a fact-finding mission led by the European Commission was recently conducted in Bulgaria, which did not find any gaps in the protection of the EU’s external border. And since “we previously found that Bulgaria has implemented reforms in the area of the rule of law in a sustainable way, we conclude that Bulgaria meets the requirements for Schengen accession and can join the Schengen area,” the statement said. to the authorities in the Netherlands. From there, they add that they are committed to ensuring that Bulgaria continues to work for healthy external borders.
So many things have improved that it would just be very stupid if the Netherlands continued to hold Bulgaria back. This was stated by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on the sidelines of the EU summit in Brussels. “The Netherlands has been doing this (blocking Bulgaria) for about fourteen or fifteen years, but now you can really see progress. In this case, simple
we should be fair
If we’re saying you’re doing everything that’s required of you, but we’re still stopping you, that’s just not right,” Rutte said.
Earlier at the EU summit in Brussels, Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov announced that he expects positive news from the Netherlands.
“Today (Friday – b.a.) there was a decision of the Dutch government on the subject, and it is about to be submitted to the Dutch parliament, which should take the final decision to lift the veto. This will happen next week, if everything is in order,” Denkov revealed. He emphasized that in order to make this possible, a rather difficult path has been taken in recent months. “The adopted laws in the National Assembly, the work on setting up the special monitoring mechanism for Bulgaria, which is related to the rule of law, the positive results of the mission that was in November in Sofia with the participation of the Netherlands and Austria,” said Denkov.
At the same time, it became clear that Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who blocked the decision on the 12th package of sanctions against Russia,
was not in the hall for the sake of membership To Bulgaria
in Schengen, when the leaders approved the measures, three European diplomats revealed to Politico. According to the sources, this was a coincidence as Nehammer had left the room to speak to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen about the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen free travel area. His absence, however, was very reminiscent of that of Viktor Orbán, when the decision was made to give the green light to the negotiations for Ukraine’s accession to the EU (more about what happened to the Hungarian Prime Minister – right).
There was another meeting on the free travel zone on Thursday, where Prime Minister Nicolai Denkov and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis spoke with Carl Nehammer and Ursula von der Leyen. They discussed the future of the ambitions of Sofia and Bucharest for the Schengen area.
According to Denkov, the four also discussed the need to open land borders as well as airspace after Austria signaled earlier this week that it would consider lifting its veto on Romanian and Bulgarian airports becoming part of Schengen.
“We explained that land borders are important to us. Negotiations will be until the end. I don’t know that there was a face-to-face meeting between Nehamer and von der Leyen”, announced the Bulgarian Prime Minister.
On Friday, Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Maria Gabriel announced that even if there is an option for phased entry into Schengen, it is important for us that it also includes land borders.
“We show understanding towards internal political situations, but Bulgaria is the one that
he will stand up for himself the conquered with a lot of labour”,
added Gabriel in parliament ahead of the hearing in the parliamentary committee on EU affairs, the Schengen area and the eurozone. According to her, a package of all borders – air, sea and land, will ease the queues at the borders. Gabrielle was adamant that at this stage there is no risk of our country being separated from Romania for Schengen.
2023-12-15 20:30:00
#Breakthrough #Netherlands #Schengen #Overview
