AGERPRES special correspondent Florin Stefan reports: The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, the Austrian Magnus Brunner, declared on Thursday evening, in Brussels, after the meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council, that the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area with land borders from January 1, 2025 represents "a huge step for the improvement of the EU as a whole".
He told a press conference after the meeting of the interior ministers, that, in his opinion, "the Schengen area is one of the most important achievements of the EU, after the euro and the internal market", reiterating the fact that Schengen is "the biggest free movement area in the world, with half a billion people".
"I myself grew up in a Schengen border situation of the EU with Switzerland and I understand what a great achievement it is that we welcome the full accession of Romania and Bulgaria", said the senior EU official in a personal note.
Hungarian Interior Minister Sandor Pinter, the representative of the Hungarian presidency of the EU Council, also spoke about "a very important step."
"After more than a decade of negotiations on the Schengen accession of Romania and Bulgaria, we managed to conclude this process successfully. Checks on people at the land borders will be lifted from January 1, 2025. There were intense negotiations in the field and in 2011 myself I was the one who made that proposal during the Hungarian presidency. It took a lot of patience, but in the end, after 13 years, we reached the finish line", said Sandor Pinter.
"I thank my Romanian and Bulgarian colleagues for the efforts made and all my colleagues from the EU for their understanding", said the Hungarian Minister of the Interior.
Comentează