Literally in a few days, the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers of the EU will make a final decision on Bulgaria’s accession to Schengen.
Austria and the Netherlands have already announced that they will not support our country’s entry into the Schengen area. Apart from being quite humiliating for Bulgaria, such a decision will deprive Bulgarians of many benefits and facilities during the trip, writes dariknews.bg.
What do you need to know about Schengen?
iStock
The Schengen area is a group of 26 European countries that have abolished border controls between them. The only EU members that are not members are Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia.
Schengen allows more than 400 million Europeans to move freely regardless of borders. The implementation of the Schengen rules involves the abolition of border controls with other member countries, at the same time strengthening controls on citizens of non-Schengen countries.
With no internal border controls, people can travel wherever they want within the Schengen area without worrying about passports, visas and long queues at checkpoints.
iStock
In addition, border control costs are significantly reduced, as it is no longer necessary to patrol internal borders within Schengen.
All countries share the costs of maintaining external border control, so smaller countries on the fringes of the Schengen area will significantly reduce the cost of border control.
Schengen has a positive impact on trade. The time required to move goods across Europe is significantly reduced. Now trucks take hours and days to cross certain borders. This makes it much easier, faster and cheaper to move goods within the EU.
iStock
Tourism is one of the industries that is also flourishing in Schengen because more and more people can visit a country without worries.
Schengen also makes it easier for Europeans to move to another country for work or education.
