Schengen: EU Lifts Land Border Controls with Bulgaria and Romania

Marian-Cătălin Predoiu (Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Internal Affairs, Romania), Sándor Pinter (Minister for the Interior, Hungary), Atanas Ilkov (Minister for the Interior, Bulgaria) and Magnus Brunner (European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration). Photo © Hungarian presidency

EU member states have decided to remove checks on persons at the internal land borders with and between Bulgaria and Romania from January 1, 2025, according to an announcement by the Hungarian presidency of the Council of the European Union

“It is a historic moment to finally welcome Bulgaria and Romania as full Schengen members,” said Sándor Pintér, Hungarian Minister for Home Affairs. “Lifting checks on persons at the internal land borders with and between those member states has been a top priority for the Hungarian presidency, and today we have made it a reality.”

According to Pintér, lifting checks will benefit not only Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, but also the EU as a whole.

Background

Since their accession to the EU, Bulgaria and Romania have applied parts of the Schengen legal framework (the Schengen acquis), including those relating to external border controls, police cooperation and the use of the Schengen Information System.

On December 30, 2023, the Council adopted a decision to apply, from March 31, 2024, the remaining parts of the Schengen acquis and to abolish checks on persons at internal air and sea borders.

Schengen is the largest free travel area in the world. Border checks between France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were first dropped in 1985.

The Schengen area now covers 29 countries (25 of the 27 member states, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) and 420 million people. Controls at the internal borders with Cyprus have not yet been lifted, and Ireland is not part of the Schengen area.