Austria drops veto on Bulgaria, Romania fully joining Schengen travel zone

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VIENNA (Reuters) – Austria is dropping its veto on Romania and Bulgaria becoming full members of Europe’s Schengen free-travel area, its interior ministry said on Monday, paving the way for European Union interior ministers to approve the move at a meeting on Thursday.

Romania and Bulgaria, both EU and NATO members, partly joined Schengen in March, after an agreement with Austria which initially opposed their joining on the grounds they needed to do more to prevent illegal immigration.

While air and maritime border checks between them and the other 27 countries in the travel zone were lifted, negotiations with Austria over land entry have continued through 2024.

“We can take the next step at the EU (Justice and Home Affairs) Council,” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said in a statement issued by his ministry.

“After ‘Schengen Air’, ‘Schengen Land’ is now open to Romania and Bulgaria,” Karner said, adding that Austria’s demands on tackling illegal immigration had led to a fall in the number of migrants intercepted near Austria’s border with Hungary, the most common route into the country.

“Without this veto this massive reduction in illegal border crossings would not have happened,” he said, citing a figure of 70,000 interceptions in the year to October last year and 4,000 in the same period this year.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Alex Richardson)