Bulgaria's accession to Schengen with the lifting of air and sea border controls at the end of March 2024 is a huge step forward after 12 years of negotiations and six months of hard work by the government and the National Assembly. It happened, despite all obstacles, prejudices, skepticism, huge geopolitical and domestic political interests. This was stated in a joint statement by Prime Minister Academician Nikolay Denkov and Deputy Prime Minister Maria Gabriel.
They emphasize that this is a hard-won but well-deserved victory for Bulgaria. Because while we were convincing the countries that were stopping us on the way to Schengen, we took those important steps that guarantee us a better quality of life here - in Bulgaria. "We ranked first in the world for the fastest progress in the justice system - and this reversed the position of the Netherlands, which had stopped us for so many years. This progress is extremely important, because we cannot live well and feel fulfilled if all Bulgarians are not equal before the law and do not deal with corruption. We reliably defend the borders of the European Union, because they are our borders too - and this ultimately reversed Austria's position as well," the statement said.
"We have achieved this success despite a hostile political environment and a boom in disinformation that has ramifications for the whole of Europe - and touched on the subject of Schengen as well. Contrary to the spread of fake news in recent days, there are no new conditions related to the number of migrants from Syria and Afghanistan that Bulgaria and Romania will register and accept as Schengen member states. We will continue, as before, to apply the terms of the Dublin Agreement. Bulgaria does not and cannot accept persons for whom it is not responsible. And these are the facts that are indisputable," Prime Minister Denkov and Deputy Prime Minister Gabriel point out.
In March, we will become part of the millions of European citizens who fly and sail freely. Tens of thousands of Bulgarian citizens will take advantage of this opportunity every month after March. This is also a breakthrough for business, tourism, and culture in Bulgaria, in front of which many obstacles are being removed and new opportunities are opening up.
"All this, step by step, is happening thanks to you, the Bulgarian citizens. Your will to have a functioning government and a functioning parliament played a crucial role in getting us to today's breakthrough. Therefore, we thank everyone who spared no effort to achieve huge progress on Bulgaria's path to Schengen even after the first 6 months.
We continue to work with even greater conviction that we belong to this community.
We believe that it is only a matter of time before political processes in Europe lead to the abolition of land border controls as well - for the benefit of European citizens, of which we are a part," said the joint statement of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.
Academician Denkov and Maria Gabriel wish all Bulgarians happy New Year's holidays and an even more successful New Year 2024! /BGNES
