The increasing refugee pressure towards Europe makes the issue regarding the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen Area extremely topical. The refugee crisis was one of the main topics of discussion during the visit of Bulgaria’s Deputy Premier Meglena Kuneva to Finland. Meanwhile, the Bulgarian cabinet believes that the threat of international terrorism combined with the unprecedented migrants’ pressure towards Western European countries would change the Schengen Area and insists that Bulgaria should be part of this process.

The main arguments of the authorities remain unchanged: Bulgaria has fulfilled the technical criteria for its Schengen membership, but it is still waiting to become a member of this area. However, Bulgaria fulfills strictly its engagements with regard to the protection of the EU external borders. This is proved by the fact that the migrants coming from the Middle East avoid Bulgaria on their way to Western Europe. Sofia continues to agree on partial membership to the Schengen Area, which will be initially done through the so-called blue borders. However, the country’s government now insists that the topic regarding Bulgaria’s accession should not be further delayed. Deputy Premier Kuneva said that a decision about the country’s accession to the Schengen Area should be taken before the end of the judicial reform and before Bulgaria makes amendments to the Judicial Act, the Civil Procedure Code, the Penal Procedure Code and the Penal Code.

Bulgaria’s cabinet also shares the latest stand expressed by the EU that the Schengen agreement must not be viewed only as a free movement of people, but also as an instrument of security. In that context, the Bulgarian authorities claim that Bulgaria can not be fully efficient with the fight against crime, if it does not have full access to the Schengen information system. In fact, if Bulgaria had full access to this information system, it would not have allowed its citizens to interfere with the recent tragedy, when a lorry full of immigrants found to be dead was intercepted in Austria. Human trafficking is a very complicated matter and the national information system is not capable of finding that a vehicle registered in Hungary could be left on the road by Bulgarian drivers some 50 kilometers away from Vienna with 71 dead immigrants from the Middle east. The human trafficking issue has long ago become an international phenomenon and can only be combated with joint actions.

The EU is currently revising its migratory policy and Sofia wants to take active part in this process. Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov announced that that country intended to initiate discussions in the EU regarding the development of the EU refugee strategy and the fights against the Islamic State. The Bulgarian authorities believe that the countries must make difference between refugees and economic immigrants. That is why the EU countries should take different measures against these two categories of migrants. Bulgaria also believes that the efforts of the countries should be directed not only towards not only towards the effects of the refugee flow, but also towards the sources and causes of the heavy migratory flow from conflict stricken countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Sofia expects that the forthcoming sitting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council in September will dwell again on the issue about this country’s accession to the Schengen Area. The final decision will be made at the end of October by the European Council. However, Germany’s Foreign Minister warned earlier in August that his country’s membership to Schengen could be put under question, if other member states do not share the burden of the refugee crisis. With regard to the thwarted terrorist act against the train Amsterdam-Paris, Belgium demanded that the Schengen regulations should be revised, which would allow the authorities to make more inspections on the identity and the luggage carried by the passengers, which practically means that border control in this area would be resumed. The Schengen agreement allows the members to resume the control along their state borders for national security reasons and France and Portugal already did that. The refugee crisis may force the countries to resume their border control for a long time.

It turns out that the migratory pressure hampers Bulgaria’s accession to the Schengen Area due to the changes occurring in that area. In these circumstances we should ask ourselves the question - what type of area Bulgaria strives to join and is it not better to wait with the possible decisions.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov