Germany Dims Bulgaria's Schengen Hope

Germany is getting ready to block Bulgaria's Schengen membership, according to German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich.

In an interview for the Spiegel magazine, Friedrich warned Germany is going to veto Bulgaria's and Romania's Schengen accession as German citizens would support the enlargement of Schengen only upon fulfillment of certain conditions.

Until now the two countries were denied Schengen membership on several occasions mainly over the opposition of the Netherlands on grounds even though they have fulfilled the technical requirements, they cannot secure their borders over lack of progress in the fight against corruption and crime.

The Netherlands says it wants to see two consecutive positive European Commission reports on them under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism.

Meanwhile, the enlargement of the Schengen area was removed from the agenda of the forthcoming summit of the EU Council on Justice and Home Affairs on March 7th and 8th in Brussels.

The news was reported last weekend by the Bulgarian National Radio, BNR, citing the Council's press office.

At the beginning of the year, the Irish Presidency of the European Union distributed a program, according to which the enlargement of Schengen and Bulgaria's and Romania's membership was included in the agenda of the above summit.