The Working Party for Schengen Matters (Sch-Eval) is expected to decide at its final sitting on Monday whether to endorse the technical reports on Bulgaria.

The Schengen Area evaluation group (Sch-Eval) postponed at the end of January the adoption of two technical reports on Bulgaria, while endorsing the report on Romania's Schengen accession.

The reports concerned Bulgaria's Schengen Information System and the Supplementary Information Request at the National Entry (SIS/SIRENE) and land movement.

Bulgaria and Romania, which have been coupled ever since their joint accession to the European Union in 2007, aim to enter the border-less zone in March this year, claiming that all requirements for it had been met.

Accession is uncertain, however, since a report on the security of Bulgaria's frontier with Turkey was negative.

"The adoption of the reports was delayed because of the new information, which the Bulgarian government presented about the job it has done by the end of last month and the tasks ahead," Andrei Kovachev, MEP from the ruling GERB party, commented.

Once Sch-Eval adopts the reports, they will be referred to the EU institutions, which are to make the final decision on whether the country can join the borderless Schengen Area in March 2011.

Another group of Brussels experts are scheduled to visit Bulgaria in March for a final check of its readiness to accede to the border-less zone.

Hungary has already stated it will do everything possible to facilitate Bulgaria and Romania's Schengen entry during its EU presidency, which expires in the middle of the year.

However, in the last weeks of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, key EU member states - most notably France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Finland - have declared their opposition to the Schengen accession of the two Balkan states saying it would be premature as Bulgaria and Romania still face issues with the implementation of the Schengen requirements with respect to controlling what will become their external EU/Schengen boders.

What is more, since December 2010 the Interior Ministers of France and Germany as well as France's EU Affairs Minister Laurent Wauquiez have voiced additional criticism with respect to Bulgaria and Romania as far as the progress in their judicial reform and rule of law is concerned.

They have demanded that the European Commission's post-EU accession monitoring of the two newcomers under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (most notably EC's annual progress reports expected in July) should be taken into account when deciding upon Bulgaria and Romania's Schengen fitness.

The last report of the Brussels working group on the Bulgarian and Romanian Schengen readiness has found problems in both countries - but most of all - with Bulgaria's border control along its Turkish border.

This has led the Romanian government to slam Bulgaria numerous times for dragging it down since a decoupling of the two states for Schengen is unlikely as this will mean additional spending to secure their joint border.

In spite of the assurances issued made by the government in Sofia that Bulgaria will be fully qualified for Schengen accession by March 2011, it is virtually impossible that Bulgaria and Romania will be approved for entry according to the original deadline.

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov has recently mentioned he hoped that Bulgaria will make it into Schengen by the end of 2011, which appears to be a more plausible timeline.