Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov held a working meeting with his Austrian counterpart Gerhard Karner. Their talks focused on illegal migration and cooperation between the police forces of Austria and Bulgaria. 

Stoyanov stressed that thanks to the reorganisation of the work of the border police and the good cooperation with Turkey, the number of illegal migrants apprehended at the Bulgarian-Turkish border had more than doubled. "We have received a very high assessment of the work of the Ministry of the Interior and in particular of the Border Police for the results achieved so far. We continue to work actively to change Austria's position on Bulgaria's Schengen membership," said Minister Kalin Stoyanov after the meeting. 

• Minister Gerhard Karner: I saw the fence between Bulgaria and Turkey and there is still a lot of work to be done

He pointed out that the reasons for Austria's "no" so far were not the activities of the Bulgarian services, but the poor functioning of the Schengen area.