Austria Ties Up Bulgaria, Romania Schengen Entry with Monitoring

Monitoring should be imposed on Romania and Bulgaria if they are to enter the Schengen Agreement in 2011, Austria's Interior Minister Maria Fekter declared.

She gave the recent easing of the visa regimes for Bosnia and Albania, which was also under the condition of close monitoring and an option for a subsequent termination of the free regime, should any problems occur.

France, The Netherlands and Germany are also reluctant about Bulgaria and Romania joining the Schengen Agreeement, Fekter underlined. According to her, the two Balkan states should put more efforts into fighting corruption.

Both countries hope to join the EU's border-free zone by the end of 2011 as scheduled and the official line is that recent expulsions of mostly Romanian and Bulgarian Roma from France is irrelevant to that process.

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