Bulgaria and Romania will join the Schengen zone next year. The member states of the European Union have that decided unanimously on Saturday evening. From March 31, 2024, it will be possible to cross the borders between the current Schengen countries and Bulgaria and Romania without checks.
Since their accession to the European Union in 2007, Bulgaria and Romania have taken increasing steps to become part of the Schengen zone, but the Netherlands was reluctant for a long time. Their application was on the table for more than ten years, partly due to Dutch and Austrian concerns about the level of the rule of law and the approach to crime and corruption in the two countries.
By mid-December, The Hague was turning: with the arrival of the new Bulgarian government in July, the rule of law has improved, wrote outgoing State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum and Migration, VVD) in a letter to the House of Representatives. The Netherlands has wanted to agree to Romania’s accession since the end of last year. Austria also announced in December that it wanted to relax the blockade.
The Schengen zone, within which you can travel freely without border controls, will soon consist of 29 countries. There are two EU Member States that do not belong to Schengen: Cyprus and Ireland.
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