Schengen Working Group to Accept Bulgaria Report

The report on the last assessment of Bulgaria's lands borders is to be accepted by the Working Group on Schengen Matters (Sch-Eval) Tuesday.

The report evaluated positively Bulgaria's technical preparedness to join the borderless zone meaning that the country has now covered all Schengen criteria. Diplomats say there are no objections concerning the Balkan country's technical readiness, according to the Bulragian National Radio.

The potential political objections will be discussed in June during the Council of EU Interior Ministers' sitting in June.

On Monday, Bulgaria and Romania's bid to join the Schengen border-free area was given green light by the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament but Bulgaria, together with Greece, has been urged to watch out for illegal migrants on its border with Turkey.

The entire European Parliament will hold its plenary vote on Bulgaria and Romania's Schengen readiness in June, and the final decision will be for the Council.

However, Bulgaria and Romania's Schengen entry has also been facing political opposition by key EU member states such as France, Germany, and the Netherlands, whose governments have demanded that the Balkan states' accession to the border-free zone be made conditional on their post-EU accession monitoring, the so called Cooperation and Verification Mechanism reports issued each July by the European Commission on problem areas such as organized crime and judicial reform which are technically unrelated to the Schengen criteria.

While Bulgaria and Romania have missed the original deadline of joining Schengen in March 2011 but are still hoping to join before the end of 2011, it is still unclear when and under what conditions Western EU states will lift their political objections. What is more, it is still unknown if or how the recent French and Italian initiative to modify border control rules caused by the influx of North African immigrants might change the nature of the Schengen Agreement.