Schengen Entry for Bulgaria and Romania Still Postponed

Recently the Foreign Affairs Minister of Romania Titus Corlăţean stated that no consensus has been reached in connection with the acceptance of Romania in the Schengen area. The minister further stated that he is sure Romania will finally be joining Schengen, though the country is now not in the area where the target was overbid. Some of the people in the country say that Romania should be alone in the search for Schengen entry. Others believe that it would be better for Romania to apply for entry in the Schengen zone along with Bulgaria.

Currently, both Romania and Bulgaria have fulfilled the technical criteria to become members of the Schengen zone. However, the two countries have failed to convince the member countries of the Schengen area that they deserve to be accepted as full members. The European political landscape is quite complicated and both Romania and Bulgaria’s accession to Schengen is victim of other factors which are not directly associated with the readiness of Romania and Bulgaria to become members of the Schengen travel-free zone.

In the past few years France, the Netherlands and Finland opposite the joining of Romania and Bulgaria into the Schengen free movement zone. These countries insisted on a two-step accession – first naval and air borders and later – the terrestrial borders.