Bulgaria set to fully meet Schengen area entry criteria by 2010-end

published on 3/23/10 12:54 PM

The Interior Ministry and the Open Society Institute agreed on implementing a civil monitoring on Bulgaria’s preparation for entry to the Schengen area. It is this country’s ambition to become part of it by the end of the year. However, this cannot happen unless Bulgaria meets all membership criteria. Interior Minister Tzvetan Tzvetanov said that with the support of the government the requirements would be met, so that the Bulgarian citizens could benefit from the privilege of EU membership to the full. He pointed also to the fact that the country had managed to catch up on the absorption of the funds earmarked by the European Commission for accession to the Schengen area. A report of the National Audit Office published a month ago found that as of September 2009 the country had used a little over 20% of the allocated funding.

“With the decision of the European Commission to extend the deadline by three months until March 31, 2010, and the organization we created, we have managed to absorb 100% of the funds allotted by the European Commission to Schengen entry,” Interior Minister Tzvetan Tzvetanov said. “The government decided to allocate BGN 56 million in national funding for accession to the Schengen area. This will be enough to meet fully membership criteria by the end of 2010. The inking of the memorandum coincided with the penultimate peer review that just started. It is on the land border. Overall I think that based on what we achieved in the past few months, the review findings will be satisfactory. We have taken steps to use the good practices of EU member states executing the necessary control over the Schengen area. We are going to test a system set up by the Slovak government, which localizes and captures illicitly transiting passengers hidden in lorries or vans, which will enable us to guarantee that the border control at Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint with Turkey will be fully capable of preventing illegal entry to the country.”

The last in a series of reviews on Bulgaria’s preparedness to join the Schengen area will take place at the end of the year and will be related to the common information system, Mr. Tzvetanov added. He stated the good example of the single-counter service at two border checkpoints with Bulgaria’s southern neighbour, Greece. He pointed also to the positive results in the partnership with the counterparts from the Romanian Interior Ministry, whereby exchange of good practices and joint work on removing failures has been established between the respective Border Police experts.

According to Georgi Stoychev, executive director of the Open Society Institute, the big challenge is that the Bulgarian authorities absorb in a sufficiently efficient way the funding given the short notice and the ongoing economic crisis. This is accompanied by a domestic and an external risk, he maintains. The former means that the country will not be able to meet the membership criteria, while the latter relates to the possibility of delaying Bulgaria’s membership.

“The requirements have become stricter at present,” Georgi Stoychev explains. “That is why the Bulgarian government and the state institutions should not only meet the criteria and win the trust of the opposite party, but the overall confidence of the citizens and the wide public, both in Bulgaria and the other member states. We believe that the implementation of independent civil monitoring on the process will drive the public institutions to work at their best and will raise public awareness on the issue. I would like to point to the possibility of a third risk, which is down to the fact that Bulgaria walks the road to Schengen hand in hand with Romania. This means that if either falls behind, it might lead to a delay in the second country’s membership, as well. That is why the Open Society Institute will support partner civil organizations in Romania to carry out the same kind of civil monitoring there, too.”

English version by Radostin Zhelev

По публикацията работи: Rumyana Tzvetkova

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