(Reuters) – Romania and Bulgaria scrapped land border controls to become full members of the EU’s Schengen free travel zone on Wednesday, joining an expanding bloc of countries whose residents can travel without passport checks.
Fireworks lit up the sky near the Bulgarian border town of Ruse just after midnight as the interior ministers of Bulgaria and Romania symbolically raised a barrier on the Friendship Bridge, which spans the Danube River. The crossing is a major transit point for international trade and is a frequent bottleneck.
“This is a historic moment,” said Bulgarian Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev. “From Greece in the south to Finland in the north and Portugal in the west – you can travel without borders.”
Checks on air and sea travel from Bulgaria and Romania were lifted in March 2024, but ground checks continued until Austria overturned a veto last month, which it maintained on the grounds that more was needed to stop illegal migration.
Border checks between France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were first abolished in 1985. The Schengen area now includes 25 EU member states, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
Ireland and Cyprus are not members of the Schengen area.