European Parliament Debates Bulgaria, Romania Schengen Entry

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 a month ago. File photo

Members of the European Parliament will debate on Tuesday the extension of Europe's borderless Schengen zone to the newest members of the EU club, Bulgaria and Romania.

The MEPs will vote on Wednesday.

Two possibilities are reportedly on the table: a decision on the extension of the Schengen zone should be made by the end of the year; and an open-ended consideration of such a move.

The Council is expected to say that the countries are now technically ready to join, leaving the final decision to politics.

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 a month ago.

Bulgaria, together with Greece, were urged however to watch out for illegal migrants on its border with Turkey.

According to the MEPs on the Committee, the two EU countries have met the necessary conditions to join the Schengen Agreement based on the evaluation reports on their preparations.

However, the Committee has insisted that the EP be kept informed of additional measures to be taken in the Bulgaria-Turkey-Greece area to cope with a possible surge in migration pressure.

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. Their 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.

Under current EU rules, the key condition for joining the Schengen area is the ability to ensure the security of EU's external borders, the EP press service points out in a statement, further adding that checking that new members have met all Schengen acquis requirements (control of land, sea and air borders, issuing visas, police co-operation, readiness to connect to and use the Schengen Information System and data protection), is a precondition for the Council of Ministers to decide, after consulting the European Parliament, to abolish checks at internal borders with those Member States.

Schengen co-operation began on 14 June 1985, with the Schengen Agreement, which provided for the abolition of systematic checks at the internal borders of the signatory states and for the creation of a common area, with free movement of persons, and a single external border (with common rules on external border controls, a common visa policy, police and judicial cooperation and the establishment of the Schengen Information System). The five founder members were Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

The Schengen area has since grown to encompass 25 members: the EU countries Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and the three associated non-EU countries Norway, Iceland and Switzerland (Liechtenstein should soon become the fourth associated country).

At present, free movement is guaranteed within a territory possessing 42 673 km of sea coasts and 7 721 km of land borders, covering 25 countries and 400 million citizens.

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