The EU Council will vote around 11.00 am. Bulgarian time today, a decision has been made to abolish checks at the land Schengen borders of Bulgaria and Romania from January 1 next year.
The decision is set as the first item on the agenda for the meeting of the European Ministers of the Interior in Brussels.
The proposal of the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU received preliminary approval from the ambassadors of the EU countries at the end of November. On December 30 last year, the proposal of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU to drop the air and sea borders in Schengen for Bulgaria and Romania was accepted. At that time, only Austria was against the complete abolition of Schengen border checks for both countries, and it was decided that the date for the land borders would be set additionally.
On the eve of today's meeting, Austria announced that it would no longer impose a veto, and the government of the Netherlands informed the parliament in The Hague that it was joining the unanimity reached in the Council of the EU.
Bulgaria and Romania have been waiting for their accession to Schengen since 2010, when the Council of the EU declared that the legal requirements were met. In the following years, despite this assessment and the repeated appeals of the European Commission and the European Parliament, the necessary unanimity was not achieved in the Council of the EU.
Scientists from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences calculated that with the decision expected today, the total positive financial effect for Bulgaria will be BGN 1.63 billion per year.