Monthly Archives: June 2013

In the spring of 2013, the German Association of Cities complained that they fear from a serious flow of immigrants that will impose a burden on the social protection systems. Gunther Oettinger, the Energy Commissioner stated that Romania, Italy and Bulgaria are “ungovernable” countries that may endanger the stability in the region and in the Schengen zone in general. This speculation showed that the new rules of the Schengen area agreement could be a step back as they will be applied according to the criteria of the member states and can be very biased. According to this agreement, Bulgaria and Romania are no longer candidates to enter the Schengen zone, as they have answered the technical criteria and have the legal right to join the area. The new rules require a new evaluation system, so the organized crime and the corruption could no longer be the easy excuse of the member states to block the entry into Schengen of Bulgaria and Romania.

However, the entry of Bulgaria into Schengen depends on the member countries, the European Parliament and the Commission. Hopefully, thanks to the new rules the member states could feel more at ease to accept the two new countries in the Schengen zone.

In the end of May, the Council and the European Parliament reached an agreement and accepted a new package of legislative measures. According to the new rules shall be established internal borders within the Schengen area, however not everyone sees that as a progress. The agreement reached showed a compromise, since there was a clash in the opinions of the two institutions. It all started in 1985 when seven countries from Europe decided to abolish their internal borders and signed an agreement. The area with no borders was then joined by other states and some states outside the European Union like Switzerland, Iceland Norway and Liechtenstein. Nowadays, Schengen area has thirty members, where twenty-seven of which are using the agreement. The new rules that Bulgaria will have to follow once it enters the Schengen zone, have been set since a great number of immigrants started making troubles for some of the national populations.

The new way of government of the Schengen area aroused after the confrontation between the Council that wants more freedom for the states that want to introduce border controls and the European Parliament that wants to have strict rules on the right of the European citizens to free movement. According to the new agreement, the member states will be able to use border controls if they want to for a period of two years, in case they fear a thread from massive immigration. This means that there will be formalities to enter the Schengen zone if you are not a citizen of the European Union. The travelers will need to register online.

Belgium, one of the member states of the Schengen agreement, asked for a decision on the expansion of the zone that should be taken by the end of this year. At the end of May, the Foreign Minister of Belgium, Mr. Didier Reynders announced that his country would like to know whether the two countries Bulgaria and Romania will be accessed to Schengen or not. The border free travel area is expected to be expanded, but there is no certain dates on which that will happen. The Foreign Minister of Belgium along with the Foreign Ministry of Romania discussed the possibility for such decision of the expansion of the Schengen zone to be taken by the end of this year.

The process of expansion of the Schengen zone shall be approved after a unanimous vote made by all 27 member states of the European Union that take part in the Council for Justice and Home Affairs of the European Union. According to the predictions of the experts, Romania and Bulgaria will join the Schengen area together since they have already met the necessary technical requirements for entering the border and passport free zone.

The European Commission issues biannual overviews on the functioning of the area of Schengen, considered health-checks. According to the third biannual report that was released by the European Commission in the beginning of June, Bulgaria and its neighbor state Romania are ready to join the passport-free Schengen zone. The European Commission states that Bulgaria and Romania have successfully fulfilled the criteria for applying into the borderless area. Furthermore, the European Commission declared that it supports the efforts of the presidency that are made in that direction. Even so, the European Commission was yet not able to decide whether to lift the control that is made at the internal borders to the two countries.

Bulgaria has complied will all requirements that were laid in front of it in order to be accepted in the Schengen zone. That is why its efforts to become a member state of the Schengen agreement have been supported. At the moment the entry of both Bulgaria and Romania has been postponed. Hopefully, the two countries will be included in the passport free area at some point next spring.

The aim of the Schengen Information System is to collect and store information in accordance to the legislation system of each country. The system features more millions of entries that are called alerts and are usually covering lost identity documents, alerts for missing persons, banknotes and vehicles. The alerts contain certain information such as first and last name as well as the middle initial, sex and date of birth, nationality. The alerts also include information or whether the person is dangerous and armed, and what actions need to be taken if encountered. Bulgarian authority which is in charge for the entries is the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Bulgaria uses the Schengen Information System since the end of 2010.

The Schengen Information System does not collect information on the entries and exits of travelers. Bulgaria currently has such record on the entries and exits of the travelers, but currently that information is not exchanged between the national databases of these countries. Thanks to the new, second version of the Schengen Information System that was introduced in the beginning of June 2013, now more institutions will be able to use the data entered.