Romania and Bulgaria have reached an agreement with Austria to join the European Schengen Area for freedom of travel by air and sea by March 2024, the Romanian government said.
Earlier this week, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu wrote on Facebook: “After 13 years, Romania finally joins Schengen. We have reached a political agreement on this matter.”
The Romanian Ministry of the Interior said in a statement that a political agreement have been reached between the three countries regarding expanding the zone, to include the “air and sea borders” of Romania and Bulgaria as of March 2024.
However, the issue of opening the land borders of the two EU members has been postponed until further discussions take place next year.
Romania and Bulgaria's request to enter the Schengen area was rejected at the end of 2022, due to the objection of Austria, which complains of having to bear a disproportionate burden of migrants due to the weakness of the European Union's borders.
But Austria came back and put forward an idea at the beginning of December, which it called “Air Schengen,” as it expressed its willingness to ease the rules related to air traffic for the two countries in exchange for Brussels strengthening the bloc’s external borders.
Currently, more than 400 million people live in the Schengen Area, which covers an area of 4,312,099 square kilometers.
The historic Schengen Agreement was concluded in 1985, and includes 23 countries out of the 27 that make up the European Union, in addition to four countries outside the Union: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.
The agreement resulted in the emergence of the Schengen Area, which allows freedom of travel and movement within and across its member states, and the sharing of a unified visa policy.
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