The European Parliament voted on Tuesday on a new resolution to support the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen free movement area, right from January 1 next year. There were 547 votes in favor, compared to only 43 abstentions and 49 votes against. However, the resolution does not have legislative power, nor is it the first time that the European Parliament has ruled in favor of accepting the two countries. The final decision belongs to the Justice and Home Affairs Council, which will meet towards the end of the year.

By the end of 2022, the Council should adopt the decision on Romania and Bulgaria’s accession to the Schengen free movement area.  This should ensure the abolition of checks on persons at all internal borders for both countries in early 2023.

"The benefits of Romania's accession to the Schengen area are concrete and immediate. The accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area will mean zero hours of waiting at the border for truck drivers who export goods from Romania to the west of the European Union and zero queue hours for Romanian tourists who choose to go on vacation in Bulgaria or Greece in the summer", writes MEP Siegfried Muresan on his Facebook page, stating that this means lower costs for freight carriers, less fuel consumed and fewer hours behind the steering wheel for drivers".

"Joining the Schengen area will bring more investments to our country that will generate more stable and well-paid jobs for people. A foreign investor will be much more interested to open a factory in Romania if he knows that he can export the goods to the rest of the European Union much faster, once customs control is eliminated", states the Romanian MEP.

Several MEPs criticized the Council’s failure to take a decision on admitting Bulgaria and Romania, even though the two countries have long since fulfilled the necessary conditions. Maintaining internal border controls is discriminatory and has a serious impact on the lives of mobile workers and citizens, MEPs say. By obstructing imports, exports, and the free flow of goods from freight ports, they also harm the EU single market.

In 2021, over 36 million people and approximately 12 million means of transport crossed Romania's borders and had to wait in line for customs control.

Background

Currently, all EU member states except Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Ireland, and Romania are part of the Schengen area, which also encompasses non-EU states Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. MEPs have called for Bulgaria and Romania to be fully admitted into Schengen on multiple occasions, such as in a 2018 resolution on the topic, the 2020 resolution on the state of Schengen in the context of the pandemic, and a 2021 report on the functioning of the free travel area, it is said in a press-release of the European Parliament.