Schengen Zone Expansion with Bulgaria and Romania Blocked

BalkanTravellers.com

22 September | Two Balkan countries' hopes to join the passport-free travel area of the European Union died out, after Finland and Netherlands blocked the expansion of the Schengen zone today. At a EU interior ministers meeting there was a disagreement on the matter.

"Two member states today made it impossible for us to make a decision on Schengen enlargement," Polish Interior Minister Jerzy Miller lamented after the talks, quoted by Expatica.com. "This leads me to a rather sad conclusion regarding mutual trust among the member states," Miller added, saying Bulgaria and Romania were promised a place in Schengen when they joined the European Union in 2007.

"Today the promise has been broken," he said, adding that Romania and Bulgaria had made "huge progress” in tackling corruption and organized crime.

But Finland and Netherlands disagreed. "We don't have complete confidence that these countries will be able to secure outer EU borders because of corruption, among other issues," said Finnish Interior Minister Paeivi Raesaenen.

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