Bulgaria's and Romania's long-drawn-out journey to avoid passport controls for land travel to other EU countries is about to reach its goal. After a meeting between the EU's presiding country Hungary, the two countries, and Austria, an agreement has been reached that is now expected to be finalized in mid-December.
This is a fantastic moment. They have agreed to make a decision to lift border controls at land borders as well at the next interior minister meeting, says EU's Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson in a video post on X from the meeting in Budapest on Friday.
Austria, together with the Netherlands, has long been the greatest skeptics of fully opening up the Schengen Area to Bulgaria and Romania. If the new agreement holds, the Bulgarian and Romanian land border controls are expected to cease in early 2025. For air and sea travel, the two countries were already admitted to Schengen in the spring.
