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Ceremonies were held on Tuesday just before midnight to mark the occasion Bulgaria‘s and Romaniafull membership in Europe Schengen area, the culmination of years of negotiations by Eastern European countries to join the ID-free zone.
Identification checks at the land borders between Bulgaria and Romania and their neighboring EU member states were officially suspended at midnight, allowing travelers free access to the rest of the 27-member EU bloc. The two countries partially joined the Schengen area in March, but open travel was limited to those arriving only by air or sea.
Late on Tuesday, the interior ministers of Bulgaria and Romania met at the Ruse-Giurgiu border crossing between the two countries to mark the opening of the border. Another short ceremony was held at the border crossing between Hungary and Romania with a meeting between the head of the Hungarian national police and the chief inspector of the Romanian border police.
The Schengen expansion came after months of efforts by the Hungarian government to integrate Bulgaria and Romania into the zone during its six-month EU presidency.
About one million ethnic Hungarians live in the Transylvania region of Romania, a legacy of the partition of Hungary after World War I. Relations between the two countries have historically been difficult, but the opening of the border will facilitate travel and strengthen ties between the regions.
The Schengen area, one of the main achievements of the European project, was established in 1985 as an intergovernmental project between five EU countries — France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. It gradually expanded to become the largest free travel zone in the world.
However, several Schengen member states, including the Netherlands, Austria and Germany, have reinstated some land border controls this year due to concerns ranging from migration to security. Some EU officials have warned that reintroduced checks could undermine the programme’s aims.
Before the partial admission of Bulgaria and Romania, Schengen comprised 23 of the 27 EU member states, along with Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Every day, about 3.5 million people cross the internal border, and more than 420 million people live within the Schengen area.
The two Balkan countries joined the EU in 2007 but were not integrated into the border-free zone until March, when border controls were lifted on sea and air travel. Land border controls remained in place amid opposition, mainly from Austria, over concerns that the two countries were not doing enough to prevent migrants from entering without permission.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis previously called Romania’s full membership in the Schengen area a “natural and necessary step” that will significantly reduce waiting times at borders, reduce logistics costs for businesses and attract foreign investors. Economists from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences have calculated that membership would have a total positive financial effect for Bulgaria of 800 million euros ($840 million) per year.