Filenews 2 January 2025
Romania and Bulgaria cancelled land border controls on New Year's Day to become full members of the European Union's Schengen free travel zone, joining an expanded bloc of countries whose residents can travel without passport control.
Fireworks lit up the sky at a crossing near the Bulgarian border town of Ruse just after midnight on Wednesday as the interior ministers of Bulgaria and Romania symbolically erected a barrier on the Friendship Bridge that crosses the Danube River. Transit is an important transit point for international trade, and bottlenecks are common.
"This is a historic moment," Bulgarian Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev said. "From Greece in the south to Finland in the north and to Portugal in the west – you can travel without borders," Reuters reported.
Controls on air and sea travel from Bulgaria and Romania ended in March 2024, but land controls continued until Austria last month withdrew its veto on the grounds that more was needed to stop irregular migration. The Schengen area now covers 25 of the 27 EU Member States (excluding Cyprus due to occupation of part of its territory, as well as Ireland), as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
